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/^^-^^^^  //C^c-t^^^^*^  ^i^^s^/L^ 


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d^'^^Uj. 


ECHOES 


FROM 


CENTRAL  MUSIC  HALL 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  RECENT  SERMONS 


OF 


PROFESSOR  DfiVID  SWING 


Including  the  Celebrated  StRMON  on  "Capital  and 

Labor,"  the  Last  Preached  by 

Professor  Swing. 


COMPILED    BY 


THOMAS  W.  HANDFORD, 

Pastor  of  the  Church  of  the  Multitude. 


DONOHUE,  HENNEBERRY  &  CO., 

407-425  Dearborn  St. 

CHICAGO. 


Copyright  1894,  by 
PONOHUE.  HENNEBERRY&  CO. 


DEDICATION 


PEARL  AND  GRACIE  AND  BELLE. 

THREE  MAIDENS  IN  THE  MORNING   OF  THEIR   YEARS — 

'•  Standing  with  reluctant  feet, 
Where  the  brook  and  river  meet, 
Womanhocxl  and  childhood  fleet ! 
Gazing  with  a  timid  glance. 
On  the  brooklet's  swift  advance, 
On  the  river's  broad  expanse  !  " 

— Henry  IVadsworth  Longfellow. 


"To  you,  young  men  and  young  maidens,  the  divine 
philosophy  of  life  comes  like  the  song  of  the  morning  lark. 
A  philosophy  that  asks  only  for  a  neat  home,  vines  of  one's 
own  planting,  a  few  books  full  of  the  inspiration  of  genius,  a 
few  friends  worthy  of  being  loved  and  able  to  love  in 
return,  a  devotion  for  right  that  will  never  swerve,  and  a 
simple  religion  full  of  faith  and  love.  This  morning  hymn 
sung  by  the  world  is  for  you.  You  should  grasp  this  life 
while  the  inspiration  of  youth  is  pouring  like  a  torrent 
through  your  hearts,  and  remember  that  out  of  humble  life 
the  mightiest  souls  have  come,  and  on  the  threshold  of  a 
cottage  the  holiest  sunlight  has  alwavs  fallen." — David 
Swing. 


2227044 


CENTRAL    MUSIC  HALL,  STATE  AND  RANDOLPH  STS.,  CHICAGO. 


THE  LAST  WORDS 


OP 


PROFESSOR  DAVID  SWING. 


Up  to  the  last  Professor  Swing  was  busy  with  the  grand 
work  of  his  life.  Contemplating  the  service  of  the  approach- 
ing Sabbath  he  partly  prepared  a  sermon  he  did  not  live  to 
preach.  The  last  words  of  the  unfinished  sermon  ran 
thus  : 

**  SSic  must  all  f)opt  muci)  from  t|)e  iSratual 
progress  of  i3rott)erlB  iLobe." 

The  pen  was  then  laid  down  forever.  No  words  could 
have  been  more  appropriate.  They  strike  the  key-note  of 
the  Professor's  ministry. 


PREFATORY  TRIBUTE. 


The  world  is  poorer  to-day  by  the  departure  from  its 
busy  scenes  of  Professor  David  Swing.  Chicago,  and  the 
natio7i,  and  the  age,  have  alike  suffered  irreparable  loss. 
Men  like  David  Swing  make  the  world  a  good  place  to  live 
ill.  They  create  an  atmosphere  that  is  pure  and  healthful 
a?id  invigorating;  and  as  the  young  man  said  of  his  sainted 
wife  whose  life  had  been  as  a  light  of  heaven  upon  his  path, 
^'It  will  be  harder  to  be  good  now  that  she  has  gojief^  so 
thousands  who  have  been  cheered  and  inspired  by  the  now 
silent  preacher,  will  sorely  m.iss  the  helpful  influence  of  his 
words,  and  the  might  of  his  gentle  personality.  He  was 
one  of  God^ s  '^^ Apostle  lights,''''  whose  radiance  death  has 
neither  quenched  or  eclipsed,  but  only  removed  to  shine  more 
clearly  under  serener  skies.  David  Swing,  like  the  Fore- 
runner of  the  great  Teacher,  was  a  burning  atid  shining 
light,  a?td  many  thousands  have  rejoiced  iji  the  truth  he 
taught.  While  we  mourn  the  death  of  such  a  man,  Ictus  be 
very  grateful  that  he  was  so  m.uch  to  his  friends,  his  church 
andhis  age,  for  so  long  a  time.  Of  his  sixty  four  years, 
nearly  half  a  century  ivas  engaged  in  public  service.  The 
life  of  David  Swing  was  largely  free  from  mere  events. 
Too  m-uch  has  been  made,  and  we  fear  7nore  tvill  be  niade 
of  what  was  after  all  ojily  an  episode  in  his  peaceful gc7itle 
career.  That  the  custodians  of  orthodoxy  felt  called  upon 
to  disturb  the  even  tenor  of  his  way  is  by  no  jueans  remark- 
able. Wheyi  fames  I.  of  England  said  he  would  ?nake  the 
Puritans  conform  to  the  teachings  and  modes  of  the  estab- 
lished church  or  he  would   ''^ harry  them  out  of  the  land,'''' 


PREFATORY  TRIBUTE.  9 

he  was  only  representing  the  ge?iius  of  orthodox  jealousy 
which  is  generally  as  blind  as  it  is  narrow.  James  did 
''^ harry  the  Puritans  out  of  the  land,  and  drove  them 
across  the  sea  to  find  in  this  country  a  shrine  for  liberty, 

and 

''Freedom  to  worship  God.^' 

Professor  Swing  was  practically  "harried'^  otit  of  the 
church;  but  the  trial  for  heresy,  gave  Chicago  and  the  age 
one  of  its  grandest  spiritual  forces,  untrammeled,  and  free 
''as  is  a  bird  of  air,  an  orb  of  heaven^  This  was,  how- 
ever, but  a  passing  episode  in  a  career  that  has  been  like 
a  glorious  river,  bearing  perpetual  sunshine  on  its  bosoitt, 
while  its  deep  under  currents  rii?i  steadily  07i  to  the  eternal 
sea  of  truth.  In  the  grand  siini  of  the  life  just  ended  the 
trial  episode  forms  no  important  part.  Itmight  just  as  well 
be  forgotten.  Many  who  shared  in  it  may  well  wish  it  had 
never  been.  The  broad  arid  gerierous  charity;  the  large, 
hopeful,  all-enduring  love;  that  formed  the  theme  of  David 
Siviiig'  s  ministry  became  incarnate  in  his  life.  Beatitiful 
arid  pathetic,  eloquent  and  inspiring  as  his  sermons  were, 
he  teas  the  grandest  sermon  of  all.  Arid  he,  though  dead, 
will  be  eloquent  for  many  a  day.  Thousands  ivhose  hands 
he  never  grasped,  whose  faces  he  never  knew,  will  feel  sad 
to  the  center  of  their  hearts  that  death  has  borne  away  so 
•wise  a  teacher,  so  gentle  a  friend.  He  has  served  his  day 
and  generation  and  has  'fallen  on  sleep,'''  as  did  that  other 
David  of  the  kingly  race.  His  sun  went  down  at  eventide, 
it  went  not  down  in  darkness  and  in  storm,  but  melted  in 
the  pure  light  of  heaven.  We  need  not  trouble  about  the 
future.  Prof.  Saving  will  have  no  successor.  Such  men 
cannot  be  succeded.  Beecher  and  Spurgeon  and  Swing 
have  done  their  work.  A  church  may  still  flourish  at  the 
Tabernacle  in  London,  at  Plymouth  Church  in  Brooklyn,  or 


lO 


PREFATORY  TRIBUTE. 


at  the  Central  Music  Hall.  But  the  men  are  few  and  far 
between,  who  could  gracefully  wear  the  mantle  of  these  as- 
cended saints.  Other  men  and  other  methods  will  be  able 
to  do  gra7id  work  in  the  old  places.  To  follow  in  a  proces- 
sio7i  is  one  thing,  but  to  succeed  a  great  man  is  quite  an- 
other. There  have  been  many  poets,  only  one  Milton  ; 
many  preachers,  only  one  Swing.  But  he  has  gone  from 
us,  and  yet  we  cannot  think  that  that  busy  brain  has  ceased 
to  act,  or  that  that  large  heart  has  ceased  to  love.  Miltoyi 
is  not  dead!  Hampden  is  not  dead!  Washington  and 
Lincoln  are  not  dead,  nor  is  David  Swing  !  He  has  en- 
tered the  silent  land,  and  we  stand  by  that  gate  of  death 
that  leads  to  life — silent  and  solitary  and  sad  ! 


Church  of  the  MuUitude, 
December  nth,  1894. 


SELECTIONS 


FROM   THE 

SERMONS  OF  PROF.  DAVID  SWING, 


Christ  the  Center  and  Circumference. 

The  most  powertul  Christianity  for  the  near  future  will 
be  that  one  which  shall  make  the  person  of  Christ  the 
center  and  circumference  of  its  truth  and  emotions. 
All  which  prefigured  or  gently  and  slowly  led 
toward  that  Nazarine  perfection  should  be  thought  to 
have  performed  its  mission  when  the  Christ  came,  and 
should  be  discharged  as  a  pilot  is  paid  oflf  and  discharged 
when  he  has  brought  the  great  ship  to  its  anchorage 
and  home.  This  the  high  orthodox  refuse  to  do.  Having 
informed  us  that  Moses  was  a  school-master  in  the  in- 
fancy of  religion,  they  retain  him,  rod  in  hand,  after 
Christ  has  turned  infancy  into  manhood,  and  they  send 
the  world  in  its  old  age  to  the  same  master  as  though  to 
study  again  the  alphabet  of  salvation.  The  success  of 
public  lecturers  in  raising  a  laugh  any  day  and  hour  over 
the  dogmas  of  the  Church,  warn  us  that  we  who  preach 
Christ  must  draw  nearer  that  one  theme,  and  must  per- 
mit the  modern  mind  to  enjoy  a  wonderful  liberty  in 
making  up  its  estimate  of  all  those  parts  of  the  Bible 
and  of  creeds  which  do  not  involve  the  historic  reality  of 
Jesus  as  the  adequate  Saviour  of  all  who  imitate  his 
virtues. 


12  ECHOES 

Worship  Enchains  Man  to  His  Maker. 

It  is  a  custom  of  logic  to  reason  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher,  but  it  is  often  fitting  to  argue  downward  from 
the  higher  postulate.  From  the  worship  of  God  pass 
down  then  that  admiration  of  beauty  which  so  fills  our 
age.  As  worship  enchains  man  to  his  Maker  and  detains 
him  until  he  is  enobled  by  so  great  an  association,  so  all 
this  lower  admiration  of  beautiful  things  flings  back 
some  rich  coloring  upon  the  admiring  mind.  It  would 
be  a  blessed  hope  for  our  youth  if  they  could  always 
have  open  to  them  some  beautiful  gateway.  No  school- 
house  will  ever  open  like  the  school  of  the  sentiments. 
The  worshiper  becomes  like  his  God. 

What  Touches  One  Touches  All. 

What  touches  one  educated  heart  touch'es  all  hearts. 
There  is  for  all  our  race  one  pathos,  one  laughter,  one 
beauty.  As  the  name  of  each  flower  of  earth  moves  all 
hearts,  and  as  each  page  of  literature  moves  all  thinking 
minds,  whether  that  page  was  composed  in  Athens  or  in 
Ital}^  or  by  Schiller  or  Lamartine  or  Cervantes,  so  the 
name  of  each  nation  touches  the  soul,  because  he  who  is  a 
good  citizen  of  one  land  is  the  child  of  all  countries.  To 
fill  the  earth  with  such  Christian  citizens  will  be  the  final 
task  and  triumph  of  religion. 

Christian  Means  Christ. 

Under  earnest  intellectual  action  the  word  Christian 
will  at  last  imply  a  human  character  like  that  of  Christ. 
Later  in  the  history  of  our  race  the  words.  Protestantism 
and  Romanism,  will  disappear,  both  displaced  by  the 
power  and  beaut}^  of  a  Christian  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. It  is  a  law  of  our  planet  that  the  less  shall  die 
when  the  greater  shall  come.     The  wild  apple,  the  wild 


DAVID   SWING.  13 

orange,  are  not  sweet  enough  to  merit  our  soil  and  sun. 
Slavery  died  when  the  present  century  came  with  its  study 
of  liberty. 

Christ  and  Woman. 

The  degradation  of  woman  came  from  her  being  set 
apart  for  looking  after  the  stuff.  She  could  not  aspire, 
or  hope,  or  think  anything,  or  learn  anything,  or  be  any- 
thing. Even  so  good  a  son  as  Telemachus  told  his 
mother  to  stay  close  to  her  loom.  And  the  kind-hearted 
Xenophon  said  the  greatest  duty  of  woman  was  to  look 
after  her  husband's  food  and  clothes.  At  times,  the 
Greek  woman  broke  out  of  that  jail  and  struck  her  harp 
like  a  Sappho  or  taught  divine  philosophy  like  an  Antig- 
one. It  is  probable  Christ  aimed  at  this  domestic  bond- 
age of  woman  when  he  told  Martha  that  she  overrated  the 
kitchen;  that  Mary's  idea  was  better;  that  woman,  like 
man,  was  the  lawful  heir  of  an  immense  spiritual  world 
and  should  claim  it.  The  kitchen  .should  be  small,  the 
halls  of  the  mind  magnificent.  One  course  at  the  table  was 
enough,  the  other  five  or  six  courses  should  be  taken  at 
the  banquet  of  philosophy.  The  Protestants  read  the 
text  and  declared  the  one  needful  course  was  Calvinism; 
the  Catholics  read  it  and  locked  Mary  up  in  a  convent  that 
she  might  not  be  disturbed  in  her  thoughts. 

Burns  and  Dickens. 

What  is  most  wonderful  about  the  young  mind  is  the 
fact  that  when  books  and  schools  are  denied  it,  it  can 
meditate  and  turn  the  solitude  of  the  farm  into  a  great 
school  house.  Poverty  can  deny  the  blessing  of  books, 
but  poverty  cannot  always  prevent  reflection  from  creat- 
ing a  whole  library  of  poetry,  romance  and  philosophy. 
Many  minds,  like  that  of  Robert  Burns  and  Charles 
Dickens,   have   made  their  own  power.     Their    minds 


14  ECHOES 

kept  their  own  school  all  day  long.  Even  at  recess  the 
work  went  on.  The  school  was  perennial.  There  was 
no  cross  master.  There  was  no  tuition  bill.  Each  sum- 
mer the  poor  lonely  boy  stood  higher.  He  kept  his  own 
grade  and  voted  himself  the  honors. 

Mind  Growing  Under  Culture. 

By  as  much  as  the  human  mind  grows  under  the  per- 
petual influence  of  the  school  house  and  the  perpetual 
accumulations  of  the  literatures  and  the  sciences 
by  so  much  does  it  love  more  the  broad  places  of  our 
world.  Mind  grows  under  culture.  It  would  be  a  great 
pity  if  long  summers  and  rich  soil  and  a  thousand  years 
should  combine  to  make  great  oak  trees,  great  cypresses, 
massive  woods,  and  could  not  combine  in  some  way  in 
the  construction  of  great  minds  and  great  hearts.  The 
world's  buildings  grow  larger,  its  ships  larger,  its 
bridges  longer.  Thus  the  mind  journeys  onward,  and 
gladly  exchanges  ponds  for  oceans  and  little  ideas  for 
large  ones.  Schools,  literatures,  sciences,  arts,  and  a 
thousand  years  are  beginning  to  reveal  an  effect.  Much 
that  was  pleasing  once  is  too  small  now.  Many  ideas 
that  once  gave  pleasure  have  become  oppressive,  not 
from  any  falseness,  but  from  their  littleness.  Paulette's 
flower  in  her  green  paper  box  was  not  false.  It  was 
simply  too  much  limited  by  the  paper.  '  It  needed  scope 
for  root  and  branch  and  vine. 

Thought  Brings  Change. 

Great  changes  must  come  into  man's  intellectual 
world  after  thought  has  been  playing  upon  it  for  a  few 
hundred  years.  There  must  be  new  adjustments  of  sub- 
ject and  object,  name  and  thought.  It  would  be  very 
singular  to  us  should  some  great  despot  come  here   and 


DAVID   SWING.  15 

set  up  an  absolute  throne  in  the  night,  and  in  the  morn- 
ing v.'e  should  wake  to  find  \.h.e  castes  of  India  around 
us,  and  that  we  dare  not  speak  to  the  man  we  liked  3'es- 
terday,  and  dare  not  touch  the  hand  of  our  old  friend. 
The  wife  must  not  eat  with  her  husband,  nor  the  son 
with  the  mother.  The  soldier  must  not  associate  with 
the  farmer.  Thus  India  has  thirty-six  shapes  of  human- 
ity, going  from  the  Brahmin  downward.  Unable  to  find 
more  than  thirty-six  names  for  these  human  colors  they 
call  all  other  people  by  the  name  of  pariahs. 

Toussant  I^'ouverture. 

It  often  happens  that  a  name  comes  down  to  us  from 
the  past,  all  covered  with  honors  as  though  there  were 
under  it  great  achievements  for  man  or  learning  or  art. 
Toussant  L'ouverture  thus  comes  to  us  in  moral  charm, 
and  we  scarcely  inquire  whether  he  failed  or  triumphed. 
Upon  reviewing  the  page  we  find  that  his  schemes  failed, 
and  that  all  this  splendor  shines  out  of  the  grand  inten- 
tions of  his  heart.  Failure  from  personal  defect,  of  judg- 
ment, or  from  some  blemish  of  mind  or  soul,  seems  erased 
by  the  fact  that  honesty  was  present  even  when  power 
was  wanting. 

Ingredients  of  a  High.  Manhood. 

A  great  variety  of  ingredients  is  consumed  in  the  manu- 
facture of  a  high  manhood.  If  it  be  true  that  much  power 
of  mind  and  heart  pass  along  by  heredity,  then  to  create  a 
good  individual  one  or  two  or  three  centuries  must  be 
consumed.  Each  great  and  noble  personage  is  thus  a 
thousand  years  old.  He  carries  the  powers  and  mental 
charms  which  were  toiled  over  and  practiced  by  his  pro- 
genitors. It  is  not  wholly  in  bad  taste  when  the  Chinese 
worship  the  emblems  of  their  ancestors,  for   the  heart 


l6  ECHOES 

ought  to  bow  in  gratitude  to  the  memory  of  those  who 
shaped  well  its  destiny  in  advance.  Those  should  be 
loved  who  did  us  all  great  kindness  before  we  came  into 
being.  They  prepared  the  house  and  then  fitted  the 
inmate  to  the  house. 

Man  Made  Great  by  Sentiments. 
If  one  would  find  the  true  value  of  a  sincere  worship, 
one  must  first  note  the  vastness  of  that  spiritual  fortune 
that  comes  through  the  heart.  Literature  is  composed 
almost  wholly  of  what  the  heart  loves  and  admires.  As  the 
painter  paints  for  the  sentiments,  as  the  sculptor  carves 
for  what  society  loves,  as  music  works  wholly  for  man's 
delight  and  tears,  so  literature  utters  all  its  eloquence  to 
the  heart.  You  would  not  designate  the  algebra  and  the 
law  reports  as  literature.  You  would  not  class  as  letters 
the  debates  on  tariff"  or  silver.  At  the  mention  of  the 
word  "literature,"  human  life  in  sadness  or  joy  comes 
before  us  ;  Helen  of  Troy  poses  in  gracefulness  ;  Andro- 
mache and  her  child  part  with  Hector ;  the  plumed 
Achilles  hurries  along  in  his  chariot ;  the  woods  whisper  ; 
the  nightingale  sings  ;  Dante  and  Beatrice  appear ;  Ham- 
let acts  his  part ;  Ophelia  dies  ;  Paul  and  Virginia  make 
of  Mauritius  a  paradise  and  a  grave;  "Little  Dorritt"  is 
the  beautiful  dove  of  a  prison  ;  Fantine  sleeps  in  a  hillock 
which  soft  rain  levels  and  flowers  conceal.  Literature  is 
not  learning.  It  is  man's  holiest  passion.  It  is  the  soul 
rushing  out  of  the  holy  of  holies.  Man  is  made  great  by 
the  sentiments.  Touch  literature  anywhere  and  the 
human  face  flushes.  The  strings  of  that  instrument 
called  "letters"  are  fastened  to  the  heart. 

Poor  Thoughts  Fade. 
All  ideas  that  contain   littleness  live  only  a  temporary 
life.     Men  only  camp  in  them — they  do  not  live  there. 


DAVID   SWING.  17 

They  are  not  home.  Poor  thoughts  fade  when  some 
new  and  great  beauty  is  born.  Thus  the  two  words, 
"  Protestant "  and  "Catholic,"  are  serving  only  in  an 
interregnum,  waiting  for  the  advent  of  some  crowned 
forehead.  When  the  "Christian  citizen"  shall  have 
come  into  this  Nation  the  lesser  worlds  will  soon  perish  ; 
for  great  as  "Protestantism"  and  "Romanism",  have 
been,  neither  name  contains  any  trace  of  immortality  ; 
but  to  the  term  "  Christian  citizen  "  one  may  easily 
attach  the  word  ' '  forever. ' ' 

What  Modern  Scientists  Have  Done. 

The  modern  scientists  have  done  two  deeds  at  one  and 
the  same  time.  They  have  indeed  made  the  universe 
outgrow  the  early  interpretations  of  Genesis,  but  they 
have  made  it  too  vast  and  too  amazing  not  to  have  come 
from  a  God.  Even  the  slow  development  of  animals 
and  plants,  and  the  newly  found  wonders  of  light  and 
heat  make  the  demand  greater  for  a  mind  which  could 
arrange  so  many  great  means  to  so  many  great  ends. 
All  that  enlarges  the  material  kingdom  must  enlarge  its 
cause  and  make  the  argument  for  a  Creator  greater  now 
than  it  was  when  the  sun  was  supposed  to  be  drawn  by 
horses  and  affected  by  summer  and  winter  winds. 

The  Sensitive  Mind. 

A  slow  mind  and  sluggish  heart  can  be  aroused  by  an 
external  storm.  Blessed  that  mind  and  heart  which  in 
times  of  peace  and  of  prosperity  can  still  perceive  the  need 
of  mankind  and  can  realize  the  greatness  of  the  sea  of 
human  life,  even  though  no  storm  be  on  its  surface.  A 
common  mind  can  realize  the  greatness  of  the  ocean 
whe:i  it  is  storm-tossed,  it  is  a  finer  soul  that  is  filled 
with  awe  also  by  its  stillness  and  solitude. 


1 8  e;choes 


The  Value  of  Worship. 


The  value  of  worship  does  not  accrue  to  the  Deity,  but 
to  the  worshiper.  When  the  first  ofiFerings  were  ever 
made  to  a  god  the  mind  that  brought  the  gifts  was  still 
an  infant,  and  thought  that  its  god  needed  all  kinds  of 
food  and  drink  and  jewels.  Kven  in  times  later,  and 
much  grander  the  temples  of  Athens  and  Carthage  and 
Rome  were  full  of  offerings  made  to  the  divinities  of  each 
land.  Garments,  armor,  jewels  were  stored  away  for  the 
use  or  delight  of  the  divinities.  A  Greek  general  made 
a  vow  that  if  his  god  would  help  him  win  a  certain  battle 
he  would  offer  to  that  god  as  many  kids  as  there  were 
enemies  left  dead  upon  the  field.  When  Solomon  dedi- 
cated his  temple  he  offered  to  the  Lord  22,000  oxen  and 
120,000  sheep,  it  not  then  being  ever  imagined  that  all 
those  animals  were  the  Lord's  before  Solomon  had  killed 
them  ;  and  that,  so  far  as  the  Lord  was  to  be  thought  of, 
the  oxen  and  sheep  would  please  God  better  when  they 
were  roaming  in  peace  on  the  green  hills  than  when  they 
were  only  dead  carcasses  in  the  slaughter  pen. 

Do  Not  Ask  Too  Much. 

Sir  William  Hamilton  and  men  of  that  high  school 
have  declared  that  the  true  logic  must  never  ask  for 
more  causation  than  is  necessary;  and  such  writers  as 
Trench  have  said  that  a  miracle  is  to  be  believed  only 
when  it  was  performed  for  some  tremendous  purpose. 
Modern  logic  does  not  exclude  the  miraculous,  but  it 
demands,  in  a  religious  system,  the  least  possible  of  the 
superhuman  and  the  most  possible  of  the  reasonable  or 
natural.  To  the  pulpit  of  to-day  the  young  man  and 
the  young  woman  come  iu  all  the  new  truth  and  power 
of  logic,  asking  the  high  Calvinist  why  the  sun   stood 


DAVID  SWING.  19 

Still  for  Joshua,  or  why  God  ordered  bloody  wars,  or  why 
He  helped  Samson  catch  the  foxes,  or  pull  down  a 
temple,  and  he  is  unable  to  make  any  other  reply  than 
that  "all  things  are  possible  with  God."  This  answer 
brings  not  the  silence  of  peace  and  conviction,  but  the 
silence  of  contempt.  The  questioner  knows  well  that 
God  could  make  the  sun  stand  still,  but  doubts  whether 
he  did  so  for  a  transient  Joshua.  The  event  must  be  as 
great  as  the  divine  interference. 

Man  is  God's  Guest. 

It  is  said  of  some  Eastern  nation  that  if  a  guest  admires 
anything  in  the  home  of  the  host,  the  host  must  give  that 
object  to  the  guest.  It  would  be  cruel  to  send  the  guest 
home  with  longing,  but  emptj^  hands.  What  is  thus  told 
in  fancy  of  some  unhistoric  state  may  be  told  in  truth  of 
man's  greater  world,  for  what  he  worships  is  instantly 
his.  Admiration,  worship  is  possession.  Man  cries  out, 
"I  admire  the  sun  and  the  stars!"  Henceforth  they  are 
his.  Nothing  can  separate  them  from  his  heart.  He 
admires  music.  Ever  afterward  it  is  in  him,  of  him,  and 
for  him.  They  are  inseparable.  Man  is  God's  guest. 
God  gives  him  what  he  worships  in  the  infinite  house. 
Worship  is  not  for  God,  it  is  for  man.  We  are  in  God's 
home.     He  says  what  you  love  is  j^ours. 

An  Age  of  Worship. 

Perhaps  we  are  coming  to  an  age  of  worship  rather 
than  of  theology.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  a  period  in  which 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Testament  will  empty  all 
their  holy  and  beautiful  things  into  the  public  heart.  If 
any  mind  shall  not  love  all  the  holy  books  let  it  take  a 
part,  as  Linnaeus  did  not  espouse  the  earth's  rocks  and 
waters  but  only  its  plants.     If  one  cannot  admire  Paul  let 


20  ECHOES 

him  read  after  Saint  John.  If  worship  decliiies  at  some 
one  spot,  it  will  rise  on  some  other  page,  as  we  are  often 
unmoved  by  the  great  ocean  but  can  cry  at  the  voice  of  a 
song,  or  sit  down  in  deep  joy  in  the  leafy  woods.  One 
thin^  is  essential — to  find  some  path  in  which  the  foot 
can  always  advance  with  reverence;  for  reverence,  wor- 
ship, admiration  are  the  mighty  educators  of  our  race. 

The  Example  of  Jonah. 

If  Jonah  was  literally  swallowed  and  transported 
around  in  the  ocean  for  three  days  in  the  whale's  dark 
bed-chamber  fitted  up  for  such  a  contemptible  guest,  then 
the  lesson  ends  with  Jonah;  and  if  God  has  you  and  me, 
in  mind  He  will  have  to  issue  to  us  a  similar  order,  and 
prepare  for  us  two  more  great  fishes;  but  you  and  I  are 
included  the  moment  the  story  is  spiritualized,  because 
then  the  lesson  is  on  the  surface  that  if  any  adult  mortal 
would  rather  join  the  crowd  in  sin  than  lead  it  toward 
righteousness,  that  person  ought  to  be  swallowed  by  any 
kind  of  marine  or  earthly  monster  existing  in  animated 
nature. 

The  Moral  Spendthrift. 

Old  hand-earned  gold  is  not  the  only  wealth  that  may 
be  dissipated  by  a  subsequent  generation.  An  inherited 
power  and  morals  may  also  be  squandered  and  an  age  go 
out  of  life  mentally  and  spiritually  poorer  than  it  came 
in.  The  child  of  the  highly  civilized  parent  inherits 
great  animation  and  will  soon  possess  a  language, 
a  taste,  a  conscience,  and  a  mental  activity  far  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  child  of  the  savage.  This  is  the  spir- 
itual inheritance  which  may  soon  be  squandered.  The 
child  which,  at  its  tenth  5'ear,  could  possess  such  a  large 
fortune,  may  soon  turn  toward  vice  or  crime  and  thus 


DAVID  SWING.  21 

fling  away  as  a  drunkard  or  criminal  a  moral  excellence 
which  had  been  accumulating  for  him  in  many  a  past 
century. 

Confucius. 

So  essential  is  it  that  man  stand  in  the  presence  of 
greatness  that  the  Chinese  have  extracted  not  a  little  of 
virtue  and  honor  from  their  devotion  to  only  their  ances- 
tors. Confucius,  who,  for  twenty-five  centuries,  has 
molded  the  lives  of  many  millions,  accomplished  this 
result  chiefly  through  five  forms  of  reverence — that  be- 
tween emperor  and  officers,  between  father  and  son,  hus- 
band and  wife,  brother  and  brother,  friend  and  friend. 
This  reverence,  playing  upon  the  hearts  that  were  alive, 
arose  still  higher  after  the  object  of  regard  had  passed 
out  of  life.  If  a  brother  was  dear  while  he  was  living, 
he  is  made  still  more  dear  by  the  mystery  of  death. 
Death  transfigures  those  we  love.  All  faults  are  for- 
given and  forgotten,  and  all  merits  are  nurtured  into 
bloom.  How  much  greater  the  transfiguration  when 
love  ran  deep  before  the  death.  The  Chinese,  having 
exalted  these  five  relations  of  heart  to  heart  all  through 
the  happy  days  of  earth,  then  at  death  the  emperor,  or 
the  father,  or  wife  or  son,  or  friend  passed  up  into  a 
memory  akin  to  worship.  Thus  every  youth  went  to 
school  to  all  the  goodness  of  his  country.  He  was  sur- 
rounded by  five  types  of  mortals  who  were  trying  to  live 
in  such  a  manner  that  their  bones  would  be  like  those  of 
a  saint.     This  reverence  was  an  education. 

More  "I/ives  of  Saints"  than  Saints. 

Thoughts  will  keep  from  age  to  age,  and  cannot 
ever  be  marked  as  "perishable  goods,"  but  still  there 
may  be  a  wrong  done  society  by  means  of  that  robbery 


22  ECHOES 

which  thinking  commits  against  doing.  This  calamity 
befell  some  of  the  Christian  centuries  in  which  almost  all 
the  religious  leaders  became  writers.  There  were  ten 
men  to  suggest  for  one  man  to  perform.  It  is  now  gen- 
erally doubted  that  there  were  anj'thing  near  as  many 
saints  as  there  were  "lives  of  saints, "  for  the  mind  had 
cultivated  the  art  of  sacred  biography,  and  had  reached 
the  ability  to  make  a  volume  out  of  a  name  whose  real 
pious  exploits  were  worthy  of  only  a  page.  The  "  lives  of 
the  saints  were  more  numerous  and  wonderful  than  the 
saints ' '  themselves.  At  least,  great  works  were  absent, 
and  abundant  words  were  present  in  all  those  dark 
centuries. 

Irrelevant  Terms. 

If  the  special  names  of  many  of  the  churches  are  fail- 
ing and  are  about  to  fall  away  as  dead  limbs  from  the  oak, 
it  must  be  coming  to  pass  that  names  are  falling  away 
from  other  objects  besides  the  church.  The  sun  cannot 
shine  upon  the  grape  and  not  touch  the  ripening  fig.  In 
Illinois  the  sun  cannot  shine  upon  the  wheat  and  not 
touch  the  corn  and  grass.  The  age  that  finds  irrelevant 
terms  in  the  sanctuary  will  soon  find  them  in  the  home 
and  street.  Our  land  is  leading  in  this  work  of  separa- 
ting manhood  and  womanhood  from  all  that  is  irrelevant. 

The  Composure  of  Theology  and  the  Courage 
of  Skepticism. 

In  some  of  the  costly  missals  of  the  old  Roman 
church,  there  are  many  pictures  in  life  colors  showing  the 
attitude  the  priest  should  assume  at  certain  points  and 
crises  of  the  service.  It  is  therein  shown  how  the  arms 
should  be  raised  in  the  celebration  of  the  mass,  and  how 
the  holy  robes  should  be  received  and  be  surrendered  by  the 


DAVID   SWING.  23 

celebrant.  Thus  that  age  had  a  volume  of  positions  and 
motions  and  expressions  and  reposes,  and  when  down 
upon  that  childish  period  swept  Voltaire  and  his  laugh- 
ing allies,  the  church  was  powerless  of  rational  speech. 
Protestantism  was  an  advance  from  childhood  to  man- 
hood, from  form  to  reason,  but  its  dignity  to-day  is  too 
much  that  of  the  owl,  rather  than  that  of  the  eagle. 
Theology  sits  in  sublime  composure;  skepticism  soars 
with  courage  and  ambition. 

The  Shellfish  Element  in  Man. 

The  stupid  animals  that  live  in  shells — the  snail,  the 
clam,  the  oyster — retreat  into  their  houses  and  fasten 
their  pearly  gates  the  instant  anything  except  the  soft  water 
touches  them.  Though  only  a  pebble  may  roll  against 
their  houses  they  go  into  retirement  as  though  there 
were  a  dreadful  enemy  about.  Man  possesses  some  faint 
traces  of  a  shellfish  origin,  for  when  a  great  painter  has 
made  a  bad  finger  or  ill-shaped  hand,  however  grand  the 
face  or  form  or  subject,  the  fastidious  spectator  instantly 
closes  up  all  the  doors  of  enjoyment,  and  thinks  that  the 
artist  .should  have  followed  the  plow.  So  when  a  public 
singer  offers  to  an  assemblage  one  false  note,  the  great 
unrelenting  condemnation  sets  in,  and  all  go  home  not 
glad  at  the  sweet  sounds  they  have  heard,  but  angry  that 
a  person  should  have  taken  their  money  for  a  flat  note. 
It  would  require  years  for  that  vocalist  to  heal  the 
wounded  public. 

The  Death  of  Caste. 

Even  the  more  sensible  Greeks  in  Athens  once  had  six 
grades  of  humanity:  Priests,  mechanics,  shepherds,  hun- 
ters, plowmen  and  soldiers.  By  a  fine  process  of  differ- 
entiation the  early  Greeks  found  a  difierence  between  the 


24  ECHOES 

mechanic  and  the  plowman,  and  between  the  farmer  and 
the  hunter.  In  our  age  and  land  the  mind  longed  to  be 
released  from  all  this  oppressive  straightness,  and  on 
meeting  an  Emerson  and  a  Webster  it  did  not  wish  to  be 
told  that  they  were  degraded  farmers,  that  Washington 
was  a  low-bom  surveyor,  and  Franklin  only  a  low,  inky 
printer.  Our  Nation  came  from  a  desire  to  escape  the 
oppressive  caste  of  all  barbarous  times,  and  to  reach  and 
enjoy  the  broader  country  into  which  the  Lord  seemed 
willing  to  lead  his  children. 

Creeds  Harmful  to  Worship. 

A  large  part  of  the  church  creed  has  been  inimical  to 
worship,  and  much  that  was  not  hostile  has  been  irrele- 
vant. No  close  definition  of  a  trinity  or  of  the  will,  or  of 
the  creation  of  man  from  dust  or  from  a  rib,  no  detail 
about  Noah  or  Samson  has  ever  added  a  single  flower  to 
the  altar  of  love  and  reverence.  The  eternal  doom  of 
men  for  Adam's  sin  has  never  made  the  name  of  God 
beautiful.  Ver}^  much  of  the  creed  has  been  an  enemy  to 
the  joy  of  God's  house.  It  was  an  error  of  the  theologians 
that  the  human  race  could  adore  where  it  could  not 
admire  and  conld  love  the  deeds  of  an  unjust  power. 

The  Music  is  More  than  the  Notes. 

The  Bible  need  not  pass  in  person  into  the  common 
school,  because  the  great  soul  of  that  book  has  journeyed 
outward,  and  now  the  gems  in  the  book  are  only  a  few 
compared  with  those  that  sparkle  in  the  wide  world  of 
truth  and  beauty.  Cardinal  Newman's  hymn,  "Lead 
Ki'dly  Light,"  is  not  the  Bible,  but  it  came  out  of  it. 
It  "'as  once  a  Bible  grain,  but  it  now  is  a  field  of  wheat 
all  ripe  and  bending  far  away  from  the  Egyptian  tomb. 
The  Russian  hymn  to  the  Deity — a  hymn  which  was 


DAVID  SWING.  25 

once  wrought  out  in  gold  letters  and  hung  as  a  banner  in 
the  Emperor's  palace — is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Bible, 
but  it  arose  from  that  sacred  book  as  our  Nation  came 
from  a  few  pilgrims.  As  the  original  eight  notes  of 
music  have  been  forever  expanding,  and  have  become 
now  the  almost  infinite  music  of  the  civilized  nations, 
so  the  fundamental  utterance  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  have 
become  enlarged  into  a  varied  magnificence  of  prose  and 
poetry.  If  there  be  any  sect,  or  any  faction  of 
a  sect,  which  does  not  wish  to  see  a  Bible  in 
a  public  school,  then  may  the  common  literature 
of  our  race  rush  in  and  save  education  from  being 
robbed  of  many  of  its  greatest  beauties  and  noblest  senti- 
ments. Our  age  need  not  clamor  for  the  original  eight 
notes  of  Matthew,  or  Paul,  or  St.  John,  but  it  may  well 
clamor  for  the  music  which  the  eighteen  centuries  have 
wrought  out  of  the  Galilean  scale.  The  springs  of  the 
Mississippi  are  eclipsed  by  the  river  itself. 

Our  Race  Is  in  its  Infancy. 

This  is  not  a  dream.  If  God  made  our  world  and  our 
race  it  is  not  probable  that  we,  the  children  of  earth, 
can  outdream  the  skill  and  beauty  of  the  Infinite.  Who 
are  we  that  we  should  think  of  some  great  human 
destiny  that  a  God  had  forgotten  ?  Do  we  not  see  that  a 
hundred  names  are  dying  for  want  of  greatness  ?  The 
words  Baptist,  Methodist,  Calvinist,  Episcopalian, 
farmer,  mechanic,  tradesman,  are  too  small  for  a  long 
career.  They  were  cradle  words,  lisped  in  human 
infanc}^  but  they  are  not  the  language  of  man's  later  life. 
Should  a  man  come  to  you  now  saying,  "  I  am  a  Pre.sby- 
byterian,"  or  "  I  am  a  high-church  Episcopalian,"  would 
you  not  see  at  once  Paulette  coming  with  her  little  plant 
growing  in  her  green  paper  box  ?      Oh,  Paulette  !  would 


26  ECHOES 

the  world  could  give  thee  a  great  outdoor  field  for 
thy  plant  and  a  massive  tcver  for  its  vines,  that  they 

Might  mantle  o'er  the  battlement, 

By  war  or  storm  decayed, 
And  sweetly  fill  each  mournful  rent 

Time's  envious  touch  had  made. 

We  would  love  to  give  thee  not  tears  of  compassion,  but 
those  of  a  deep  admiration.  Is  this  a  dream  ?  Why  is 
our  race  founded  upon  a  great  God  ?  Is  it  that  this  God 
maj^  never  make  any  final  use  of  the  infinite  ?  Is  it  that 
He  may  never  reveal  to  His  children  His  wisdom  and 
love  ?  Do  we  climb  only  to  fall  ?  Do  we  run  forward 
only  to  go  back  ?  Oh,  no !  Our  race  is  still  in  its 
infancy.  We  are  still  lisping  cradle  words.  Our  great 
terms  have  not  yet  come.  Humanity  will  run  forward 
because  it  is  led  by  the  hand  of  a  God. 

God  Great  by  What  He  Gives. 

God  is  great  not  only  in  what  He  has,  but  in  what  He 
gives  away.  He  owns  all  the  colors,  but  they  are  poured 
out  upon  the  world  for  us.  The  clouds  catch  some,  the 
rainbow  some,  the  flowers  some,  the  human  cheek  some 
tint,  but  they  are  all  for  us  as  well  as  the  Creator. 
God  owns  the  sun,  but  what  does  he  do  with  the  extra 
sunbeams  ?  Ask  our  world  on  this  day  of  spring.  Ask 
all  the  human  beings  that  live  on  this  planet.  Ask  the 
birds  and  the  dumb  animals,  and  all  will  say  that  the 
sunbeams  are  for  God  and  us.  The  sea  is  His  and  ours. 
The  midnight  sky  is  for  Him  and  us.  We  need  not  the 
old  times  to  come  back  and  create  more  love  of  gold,  but 
we  pray  for  the  days  to  come  when  human  goodness  and 
beauty  will  be  like  God's  colors  and  light  poured  out  for 
all  in  great  profusion. 


DAVID   SWING.  27 

Caste  is  Weak. 

In  India  there  are  thirty-six  shapes  of  human  condition 
between  the  Brahman  that  may  be  worshiped  and  the 
widow  who  might  be  burned.  This  is  the  land  in  which 
the  thirty-six  discriminations  are  to  be  erased.  In 
England  the  shopkeeper  is  still  far  below  the  personage 
called  the  "gentleman."  Caste  is  weak,  but  it  still 
prevails;  but  the  world  is  rolling  along  gracefully  toward 
a  time  when  all  the  old,  cruel  names  will  give  place  to  the 
one  high  rank  of  intelligence  and  honor.  The  intelli- 
gence and  honor  of  a  farmer  will  make  the  plow  an 
ornament ;  the  printing  press  of  a  Franklin  and  a  Childs 
will  be  turned  by  honor  into  a  coat  of  arms  ;  the  merit  of 
mind  and  heart  will  make  the  youth  or  the  maiden  have  an 
ancestry  from  God  ;  education  and  a  Christlike  character 
will  make  woman  into  a  queen  ;  her  heraldry  need  be 
only  the  rose  on  her  bosom  ;  culture  and  righteousness 
will  open  all  the  doors  of  fashion  and  office  and  fame. 
Children  born  in  humblest  poverty  can  be  reborn  in  the 
mighty  mansion  of  humanity. 

The  Pulpit  Must  March  with  the  Age. 

Aside  from  the  privilege  of  seeking  and  finding  what 
is  most  true  and  the  happiness  which  attends  the  con- 
sciousness of  mental  freedom,  those  outside  of  rigid 
orthodoxy  are  better  able  to  answer  the  objections  of  the 
new  generation  to  a  life  of  faith  and  worship.  While  no 
form  of  Christianity  can  rest  upon  what  may  be  called  a 
wholly  rational  basis  it  is  desirable  that  there  be  the 
least  possible  quantity  of  antagonism  between  the 
Church  and  common  .sense.  There  was  an  age  once  that 
loved  the  miraculous  more  than  the  natural,  and  which, 
like  children  in  presence  of  a  story-teller,  was  most  im- 


28  ECHOES 

pressed  by  the  tales  which  were  farthest  removed  from 
all  human  experience  and  observation ;  but  few  of  the 
qualities  of  that  period  remain.  Voltaire,  Hume, 
Thomas  Paine,  Stuart  Mill,  Harriet  Martineau,  Renan 
and  Strauss  have  passed  over  the  world,  and  the  pulpit 
that  follows  such  names  must  differ  from  the  pulpit 
which  went  before  them. 

Humanity  Waiting  for  Noble  Deeds. 

The  v/elfare  of  mankind  is  no  longer  waiting  for 
words,  but  for  noble  actions.  The  song  of  charity  has 
been  well  sung  by  all  grades  of  voices  and  the  self- 
denying  religion  of  Jesus  has  been  well  preached  to  this 
generation.  The  presses  are  all  busy  with  the  literature 
of  kindness,  and  each  drama  and  each  novel  finds  its 
climax  in  the  triumph  of  the  poor.  All  has  come  except 
the  triumph.  The  quantity  of  humane  philosophy  on 
the  one  hand  is  equaled  by  nothing  so  perfectly  as  by 
the  quantity  on  the  other  hand  of  ignorance  and  help- 
lessness and  sorrow. 

The  Worship  of  God  an  Unfading  Flower. 

In  these  days  of  universal  complaint  and  unrest  the 
heart  need  not  be  empt}^  of  good  and  peace.  The 
worship  of  God  is  an  unfading  flower.  It  cares  no  more 
for  human  theology  than  the  skylark  cares  about  the  size 
and  distance  of  the  sun.  Behold  the  unchanging  good- 
ness of  God  !  The  leaves  have  come  back  to  our  forests. 
Trees  a  thousand  years  old  are  bedecked  again  in  verd- 
ure. The  roses  that  bloomed  for  Anacreon  have  come 
back  for  us.  The  olive  trees  that  wove  a  shade  for 
Christ  are  in  our  world  still.  The  carpet  of  flowers  and 
grass  is  spread  upon  Apierica  again.  It  was  unrolled 
before  the  feet  of  Washington,  and  now  it  is  unrolled 


DAVID   SWING.  .  29 

for  US.  Thus  the  worship  of  Go.l  need  meet  with  no 
end  or  decline  in  the  human  heart.  It  is  a  lifelong 
beauty  and  a  lifelong  happiness.  Man  need  not  be  a 
theologian  or  a  sectarian.  Life  will  be  full  to  overflow- 
ing to  the  heart  that  is  a  worshiper. 

Oriental  Figfures. 

Nearly  all  of  Oriental  speech  was  boldly  figurative. 
The  four  men  who  came  running  breathlessly  to  Job,  the 
first  one  announcing  an  ambush  bj^  the  Sabeans,  the 
second  one  telling  of  a  shower  of  fire,  the  third  one  in- 
forming the  good  man  of  a  raid  by  the  Chaldeans,  the 
fourth  one  announcing  a  cyclone  of  full  modern  violence, 
are  just  like  the  men  and  women  of  Bunyan,  or  like  the 
leopard,  the  wolf,  and  the  lion  which  suddenly  appeared 
before  Dante  when  he  began  to  advance  into  the  gloomy 
forest.  That  these  four  calamities  shotdd  have  befallen 
Job  in  one  daj-  ;  that  each  force  took  some  peculiar 
property,  the  Sabeans,  oxen;  the  Chaldeans,  camels;  the 
fire,  the  sheep;  the  wind,  the  house;  and  that  each 
tumult  left  one  man  only  alive  to  tell  its  special  tale,  and 
that  Job's  best  friends  sat  in  silence  with  him  for  seven 
da5-s  and  nights  upon  the  ground  to  help  him  bear  his 
sorrow  are  not  the  details  of  history,  but  of  picturesque 
literature.  In  all  those  lands  and  times  which  created 
the  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  to  be  a 
writer  was  to  be  an  artist,  a  painter.  To  find  the  mean- 
ing of  those  Scriptures  the  student  must  make  the  ex- 
ternal phenomena  to  be  those  creations  which  art  employs 
for  conveying  some  spiritual  idea  to  the  heart. 

The  Reconciliation  of  Christianity  and  Common  Sense. 

It  will  be  easier  for  the  clergy  to  cease  to  be  Calvinists 
and  literalists  than  it  will  be  for  the  rising  generation  to 


30  •  ECHOES 

cease  to  be  reasonable.  In  this  dilemma,  it  is  easy  to 
determine  where  the  change  of  the  future  will  come.  A 
great  reconciliation  must  be  brought  about  between 
Christianity  and  the  improved  common  sense — between 
the  Author  of  nature  and  the  Author  of  religion,  that 
faith  and  law  may  both  have  their  places  in  the  life  of 
man.  Faith  will  always  be  willing  to  believe  in  a  world 
beyond  this;  in  rewards  for  the  righteous,  and  punish- 
ment for  the  guilty;  in  a  world  to  come  not  made  with 
hands,  as  the  world  that  now  is  was  not  made  by  human 
fingers.  Faith  will  look  backward  and  forward  toward 
a  great  cause,  but  this  looking  will  be  founded  upon  the 
sublimity  of  the  objects  and  upon  the  feeling  that  there 
are  places  in  the  universe  where  the  w^ord  law  must  give 
place  to  the  word  God.  It  wall  be  a  misfortune  if  the 
pulpit  shall  continue  to  compel  this  faith  to  descend  from 
these  majestic  heights,  and  embrace  lovingly  miracles 
which  possess  no  bearing  upon  the  life  and  hopes  of  man- 
kind. 

Something  That  Was  not  a  Mistake. 

When  the  modern  critics  in  the  church  and  out  of  it  are 
enlarging  upon  the  "Mistakes  of  Moses"  and  upon  the 
historical  childishness  of  the  Bible,  they  should  not  for- 
get to  tell  us  that  there  ran  through  the  whole  Bible 
period  a  something  that  was  no  mistake,  a  something 
whose  history  arises  up  before  us  as  real  as  the  earth  it- 
self and  as  beautiful  as  its  four  seasons,  as  magnificent 
as  its  June.  That  something  was  worship  !  Theology 
came  and  went;  the  laws  of  Moses  were  passed  and  obeyed 
and  repealed,  fables  were  told  and  forgotten,  Paul  and 
Apollos  differed.  James  and  John  were  unlike,  but  in 
worship  all  seemed  to  meetand  the  Jacob  who  saw  angels 
on   the  night-ladder   is  beautifully  akin  to  Si.  John  and 


DAVID   SWING.  31 

Paul   and  all  are  wonderfully  akin  to  our  age  that  sings 
the  one  hymn   of  the  whole  race, 

"Nearer,    My  God,  to  Thee." 

The  Robe  of  Thought. 

Never  before  was  the  earth  so  covered  with  the  rich 
drapery  of  learning  and  wisdom  and  romance.  Kventhe 
sleeping  literature  of  the  old  East  has  been  translated 
into  our  language,  and  thus  Asia,  and  China  and  Persia 
speak  over  again,  words  that  fell  like  manna  many  ceutu- 
ries  ago.  The  month  of  June  cannot  weave  for  the  prai- 
ries a  vestment  of  grass  and  flowers  richer  than  that  robe 
of  high  thought  which  the  past  has  woven  for  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

The  Scotch  Heather. 

That  Greek  who  said  he  did  not  wish  to  belong  to  one 
city,  but  to  all  cities  was  a  forerunner" of  our  age.  How 
dear  to  each  of  you  is  Germany!  how  dear  France!  how 
dear  England!  The  Scotch  heather  is  our  flower  just  as 
well.  We  can  all  sing  the  praises  of  that  purple  cover- 
ing of  the  hills.     Chicago  and  Edinburgh  alike  love  it: 

Flower  of  the  waste!  the  heath  fowl  shuns 

For  thee  the  brake  and  tangled  wood; 

To  thy  protecting  shade  she  runs, 

Thy  tender  buds  supply  her  food; 

Her  young  forsake  the  mother's  plumes 

To  rest  upon  thy  opening  blooms. 

Bloom  of  the  desert  though  thou  art. 
The  deer  that  range  the  mountain  free, 
The  graceful  doe,  the  stately  hart 
Their  food  and  shelter  seek  from  thee; 
The  bee  thy  early  blossom  greets 
And  draws  from  thee  her  choicest  sweets. 


32  ECHOES 


How  to  l/ove  Christ. 


What  an  illogical  attitude  it  was  for  the  old  church  to 
assume  that  an  admiration  and  deep  love  for  Christ 
were  of  no  value  !  Unless  man  worshiped  him  as  God, 
man  was  hopelessly  lost !  All  high  and  profound 
admiration  was  only  love  thrown  away.  Christ  must  be 
confessed  to  be  the  creator  and  be  worshiped  as  such. 
This  view  came  from  the  old  idea  that  God  was  waiting 
for  fame  and  presents  from  earth,  and  that  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  was  waiting  also  for  honors  and  fame  from  the 
fields  of  mortalit3^  We  seem  coming  to  an  age  when  all 
the  admiration  and  reverence  each  heart  may  cherish  for 
the  Son  of  Man  will  become  a  part  of  that  heart's  treas- 
ure. If  we  bless  the  noonday  sun  for  his  light  and  heat 
and  beauty,  we  may  have  the  light  and  the  blessing. 
The  sun  is  too  great  to  need  them.  So  if  man  loves  the 
Christian  Savior,  that  love  will  enter  into  the  human  soul 
to  become  a  part  of  its  spiritual  treasure.  When  the 
fire  worshipers  adored  the  sun  they  did  not  know  how 
vast  he  was ;  that  he  was  a  million  miles  in  diameter, 
and  could  cheer  a  thousand  planets  as  easily  as  he  illu- 
minated this  one  world.  But  although  so  unmeasured, 
that  flaming  orb  poured  his  light  upon  humanity  and 
made  the  four  seasons  and  all  the  life  and  beauty  of  the 
globe.  It  was  enough  for  the  heart.  Those  children  of 
Zoroaster  did  not  worship  as  astronomers,  but  as  lovers 
of  sunbeams.  Thus  when  the  heart  thinks  of  Christ  it 
need  not  act  as  an  old  church  theologian,  but  only  as  a 
heart  full  to  the  brim  of  worship  or  love  or  admiration. 
After  the  old  theologians  had  decided  that  to  love  Christ, 
but  not  as  a  Creator,  was  such  a  hopeless  ruin  for  the 
soul  it  must  have  been  a  surprise  to  see  the  moral  beauty 
of  the  Channings  and  their  large  school.     The  surprise 


DAVID   SWING.  33 

ends   at   last   in   the  new  truth  that  the  soul  can  love  a 
sunbeam  without  knowing  the  diameter  of  the  sun. 

Man  Made  by  I/ittle  Things. 

Man  is  made  by  little  things.  His  soul  seems  made 
like  his  body  as  if  b}-  the  heaping  up  of  cells.  In  each 
cubic  inch  of  the  human  body  there  are  a  few  millions  of 
cells.  These  are  so  concatenated  as  to  compose  at  last 
the  form  of  a  Washington  or  a  Beatrice.  The  formation 
of  a  good  soul  is  not  otherwise,  and  each  little  part  is 
essential  to  the  peace  of  the  sum  total.  Little  influences 
combine  and  shape  the  heart.  It  is  not  quite  enough  to 
say  :  He  is  an  American  ;  she  is  a  Northerner,  or  a 
Southerner  ;  for  there  are  a  million  influences  at  work 
here  or  there,  and  not  each  one  will  respond  to  the  touch 
of  the  same  million.  No  one  large  term  will  save  us  ; 
for  Aaron  Burr  was  an  American  ;  the  Sioux  Indians 
are  sons  of  the  temperate  zone,  and  Henry  VIII  was  a 
Christian.  The  valuable  thing  is  the  many  little  or 
separate  facts  which  fall  under  the  broad  term.  The 
word  "Galilean"  did  not  harm  Christ  because  the  ten 
thousand  thoughts  and  deeds  of  His  soul  ran  counter  to 
the  reproachful  epithet,  and  carried  him  far  away  from 
the  old  generality. 

What  Is  a  Citizen  ? 

A  citizen  is  a  soul  before  which  all  humanity  moves  in 
its  organic  and  individual  form;  a  soul  that  does  not  live 
only  for  itself;  a  heart  that  feels  the  pain  of  the  millions 
and  that  grows  ambitious  for  the  human  race;  that  loves 
not  the  flowers  of  its  own  garden  only,  but  the  heather  of 
Scotland,  the  red  poppies  of  France,  and  the  great  sun- 
flowers of  Holland.  Tho.se  who  migrate  to  this  continent 
and  here  oppose  law  and  fling  bombs  into  the  streets, 


34  ECHOES 

were  never  citizens  of  Germany,  or  of  any  land.  They 
do  not  possess  that  kind  of  mind  that  can  appreciate  the 
progress  and  happiness  that  may  come  to  man  from  his 
country.  They  are  without  a  country  because  their 
minds  are  too  narrow  to  hold  the  idea  of  a  State.  When 
at  last  sectarian  names  shall  perish,  they  will  perish  before 
the  face  of  a  great,  even  a  majestic  name — that  of  the 
Christian  citizen.  The  former  term  will  reveal  a  relation 
to  Christ,  the  latter  a  revelation  to  humanity. 

Reason  and  Imagination. 

Reason  separated  from  a  warm  imagination  may  be 
useful  in  that  kind  of  ability  which  comes  from  concen- 
tration upon  a  single  object  of  toil.  Hence  Zeno,  Socra- 
tes, Seneca,  Epictetus,  Aurelius,  a  Kempis,  Pascal,  Har- 
riet Martineau  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  were  of  great  use- 
fulness to  the  human  family,  for  from  them  came  many 
lessons  in  a  noble  ethics;  but  they  were  special  toilers 
and  passed  life  under  deep  clouds.  Thej^  helped  unveil 
a  half  of  the  universe,  but  the  other  half  they  left  under 
the  empire  of  night.  They  were  all  destitute  of  that 
buoyancy  of  soul  which  has  made  for  humanity  its  art, 
its  music,  its  song,  its  laughter,  its  love,  its  worship  and 
its  hopes.  We  are  glad  they  all  lived  and  toiled,  but  we 
are  glad  also  that  others  lived  also  to  cover  the  naked 
trees  with  foliage,  their  outline  world  with  green  grass 
and  sweet  flowers.  lyOgic  without  passion  cannot  make 
a  world. 

The  Gate  Beautiful. 

The  gates  which  lead  out  of  orthodoxy,  of  the  severer 
form,  without  leading  away  from  Christianity  are  not 
many,  but  they  are  plainly  visible  and  very  great.  One 
of  these  portals,    through  which  many  pass  to  more  of 


DAVID  SWING.  35 

liberty  and  peace,  is  that  of  Spiritual  Interpretation.  It 
is  the  gate  Beautiful.  Of  those  who  read  not  the  letter, 
but  the  spirit,  the  cardinal  principle  is  that  a  figure  is 
better  than  a  fact.  If  loot's  wife  had  a  special  order  to 
migrate  from  Sodom  and  seek  some  more  moral  neighbor- 
hood, and,  starting  to  obey,  she  turned  back  and  became 
a  pillar  of  salt,  the  history  contains  no  valuable  lesson 
for  other  women  and  other  men,  unless  they  too  should 
receive  a  special  command;  but  if  Lot's  wife  stood  for 
any  and  every  sinful  and  giddy  woman  who  hesitates 
and  falters  in  the  path  of  duty,  then  the  lesson  is  for  all 
places  and  times,  and  the  modern  empty-minded  and 
wicked  wife  is  only  a  pillar  of  rock  or  clay,  and  is  not  a 
grand  soul  in  God's  exqiiisitely-wrought  world. 

Worship  is  for  the  Worshiper. 

May  we  not  say  that  worship  is  for  the  worshiper.  It 
is  the  human  heart  expressing  itself  and  their  rising  on 
this  utterance  to  some  higher  feeling  and  higher  thought. 
As  a  father,  friend  or  savior,  God  wants  his  children's  love 
and  hymns  and  prayer,  but  we  must  need  them  more  than 
God  needs  them,  for  He  is  so  rich  and  we  are  so  poor. 
We  rear  an  altar  to  him,  but  it  is  in  reality  for  our  own 
hearts,  they  so  deeply  need  all  those  rich  feelings  that 
accompany  the  flowers  and  the  hymns  and  prayers. 


.♦>^®®^«.- 


LAST  SERMON 

PREACHED  BY 

PROFESSOR  DAVID  SWING 

IN 

Central  Music  H all ^  Chicago,  Sunday  Morni7ig,  Mar.  20,  'p^ 


"I<ABOR  SOWING  TARES." 

' '  While  men  slept  the  enemy  sowed  tares  among  the 
wheat." — Matt,  xiii.,  25. 

It  would  be  a  happiness  to  all  of  us  could  we  meet 
to-day  having  in  our  hand  branches  from  the 
woods  or  shells  from  the  shore  where  we  may  have 
recently  attempted  to  find  pleasure  and  rest,  but  the 
events  of  the  last  few  months  and  the  gloom  of  the 
future  have  stolen  from  prairie  and  seacoast  their  long- 
found  charm. 

The  trees  and  the  waters  have  for  many  weeks  past 
sighed  over  the  infirmities  of  our  country. 

To  find  the  images  of  greatness  we  have  been  com- 
pelled to  look  into  the  past.  When  President  Cleveland 
intervened,  and,  perhaps,  saved  this  city  from  being 
plundered  and  burned,  some  men  feared  to  thank  him 
for  such  a  quick  intervention.  July  must  deal  very 
gently  with  criminals  who  are  to  vote  in  November. 

Two  Black  Passions. 

Not  since  1861  has  the  sky  been  as  dark  as  it  is  to-day. 
We  have  unconsciously  built  up  within  this  generation 

.-^6 


DAVID   SWING.  37 

two  black  passions — the  one  is  the  feeling  that  money  is 
the  onl}'  thing  worth  living  for,  and  the  other  is  that 
work  must  hate  capital.  Thus  the  level  of  all  society  is 
lowered,  the  moneyed  class  by  its  worship  of  gold,  the 
other  class  by  its  life  of  hate.  While  wealth  has  in- 
flamed its  possessors  and  worshipers  there  has  lived  and 
talked  an  army  of  angry  orators,  whose  purpose  has  been 
to  make  the  men  who  work  in  the  vineyard  hate  the  men 
who  pay  them  at  nightfall.  In  such  circumstances  the 
vineyard  will  soon  be  first  a  battlefield  and  then  a  desert. 
It  would  seem  that  all  the  Christian  clergy,  Catholic 
and  Protestant,  and  all  the  ethical  teachers  should  this 
autumn  enter  into  a  new  friendship  with  these  two  dis- 
cordant classes  and  preach  to  both  alike  the  gospel  of  a 
high  humanity.  The  churches  and  pulpits  of  all  grades 
possess  a  vast  influence.  They  do  not  hold  any  ' '  key  of 
the  situation  ' '  or  any  ' '  balance  of  power  ; ' '  they  cannot 
open  and  close  the  gates  of  the  earthly  heaven  and  bell 
for  America,  but  they  possess  an  enormous  moral  force — 
a  power  that  should  no  longer  be  exhausted  upon  little 
theological  issues  and  practices.  All  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  resources  of  the  pulpit  should  be  exhausted  in 
the  efibrt  to  advance  human  character.  Society  needs 
speedy  and  large  additions  to  both  its  righteousness  and 
its  common  sense. 

Were  the  City's  Salvation. 

What  saved  the  country  from  a  great  calamity  last 
July  was  the  fact  that  the  schoolhouse,  the  church,  and 
the  press  of  the  last  fifty  years  had  quietly  created  an  in- 
telligence large  enough  to  stand  between  the  people  and 
their  ruin.  When  the  new  kind  of  autocrat  ordered  all 
the  railway  wheels  to  stop  between  the  two  oceans  and 
had  sat  down  to  enjoy  the  silence  of  locomotives  and  iron 


38  ECHOES 

rails,  there  were  so  many  noble  and  educated  men  in  the 
railway  service  that  the  voice  of  the  autocrat  was  the 
only  noise  that  died  out.  It  was  not  President  ClevC' 
land  alone  that  came  between  us  and  a  great  calamity. 
He  was  aided  by  the  high  common  sense  of  a  large 
majority  of  the  railway  employes.  The  railwaj"  union 
of  working  men  was  not  formed  for  a  career  of  mingled 
cruelty  and  nonsense,  but  that  men  might  help  each 
other  in  honorable  ways  and  in  hours  of  great  wrong 
and  need. 

The  Heart  of  the  Pulpit. 

Nearly  all  clergymen  stand  close  to  the  people.  They 
are  reared  in  the  philosophy  that  gives  bread  to  the 
hungry.  The  gospel  of  Christ  is  one  of  infinite  sym- 
pathy. Men  who  from  choice  enter  the  ministry  of  the 
Judean  religion  are  never  so  happy  as  when  they  see  the 
laborer  sit  down  under  a  good  roof  to  a  table  spread  with 
abundant  food.  In  the  life  of  the  average  clergyman  a 
large  part  of  his  thought  and  public  utterance  and  actual 
labor  and  sympathy  is  given  to  what  is  called  the  com- 
mon people.  The  upper  classes  need  little.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  millionaire  that  appeals  to  the  heart. 
The  rich  are  so  self-adequate  that  they  may  draw  admir- 
ation and  esteem,  but  not  sympathy.  The  heart  of  the 
pulpit  is  freely  given  to  the  middle  and  lower  classes. 
In  all  time  the  common  people  have  atttacted  to  them- 
selves the  most  of  both  philosophy  and  poetry,  but  the 
attention  and  affection  they  won  in  the  former  times  seem 
weak  compared  with  the  love  that  has  been  flung  to 
them  in  this  passing  century.  Under  the  influence  of 
this  sympathetic  philosophy  wages  have  been  advanced, 
humane  laws  have  been  passed,  the  facts  of  health  and 
disease  have  been  studied,  and  new  action  has  come  with 


DAVID  SWING.  39 

new  light ;  and  when  into  such  an  age  of  both  inquiry 
and  action  there  is  projected  such  a  scene  as  that  of  last 
July  the  spectacle  does  not  belong  to  reason  or  humanity, 
but  only  to  despotic  ignorance  and  ill-will. 

I/abor  Must  Ee  I^aw-Abiding. 

Labor  may,  and  even  must,  organize,  but  the  laborers 
must  organize  as  just  and  law-abiding  men,  country-lov- 
ing men,  and  not  as  bandits.  The  depressing  memory  of 
last  July  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  labor  was 
organized,  or  wholly  in  the  fact  that  it  ' '  struck. ' '  The 
strike  was  indeed  perfectly  destitute  of  common  sense, 
but  the  chief  disgrace  of  the  hour  lay  in  the  willingness 
of  free  men  to  obey  a  central  despot  and  join  in  such  acts 
of  wrong  and  violence  as  would  have  disgraced  savages. 
Benevolence  is  humiliated  that  it  must  feed  and  clothe 
men  who  will  break  the  skull  or  kick  to  insensibility  the 
brother  who  wishes  to  earn  bread  for  his  hungry  family. 

It  was  discovered  last  July  that  some  of  the  labor 
unions  employ  fighting  men  to  go  to  and  fro  to  hunt  up 
and  knock  down  those  who  do  not  join  in  the  folly — 
those  who  are  satisfied  with  their  wages  or  who  must 
work.  Not  every  workman  is  a  trained  pugilist.  So 
men  are  hired  to  .spend  the  day  or  the  week  in  pounding 
men  who  are  noble  and  industrious.  The  cry,  "  lam  an 
American,"  does  not  avail  as  much  in  Chicago  as  the 
words,  "I  am  a  Roman,"  availed  Paul  in  Jerusalem. 
When  Paul  said  he  was  a  Roman  the  mob  fell  back,  but 
when  Mr.  Cleveland  said,  "These  pounded  men  are 
Americans,"  it  was  thought  by  some  that  he  was  not  the 
proper  person  to  make  the  remark.  And  yet  our  pulpits 
have  for  fifty  years  been  trying  to  make  Christians  and 
our  schools  and  printing  pres.ses  have  been  trying  to 
endow  these  Christians  with  sense. 


40  ECHOES 

Christ  in  Human  I<ife. 

Quite  a  number  of  Clergymen  have  banded  together  to 
preach  the  gospel  of  personal  righteousness ;  that 
Christianity  is  Christ  in  human  life,  Christ  in  society, 
Christ  in  money,  and  Christ  in  work.  We  preachers 
must  all  come  to  that  definition  of  the  church.  This 
height  of  thought  will  make  us  all  dizzy  for  a  time,  but 
the  quality  of  our  old  Christianity  will  not  meet  the  de- 
mands of  a  republic.  A  despotism  may  be  sustained  by 
Catholics  or  Protestants,  but  a  republic  must  be  sus- 
tained by  men. 

Labor  guilds  are  as  old  as  work  and  capital,  but  one 
kind  of  labor  guilds  is  new,  and  let  us  all  pray  that  they 
shall  not  live  to  become  old.  In  the  darkness  of  the 
fourteenth  century  the  young  workingman  looked  hap- 
pily forward  to  the  day  when  he  could  be  admitted  into 
the  guild  of  his  craft.  His  mother  and  sisters  looked 
after  his  habits,  that  his  character  might  be  above  re- 
proach. Thet  approach  to  the  initiation  day  was  much 
like  a  youth's  approach  to  the  first  communion.  New 
clothes,  a  feast,  new  conduct,  new  inspiration,  new 
hopes  came  with  the  hour  that  placed  this  new  name 
upon  the  noble  roll.  But  this  was  in  the  dark  ages.  In 
the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  heavens 
and  earth  are  ablaze  with  the  light  of  Christ ;  when  love 
for  man  is  written  everywhere  in  letters  of  gold ;  when 
congresses  of  religion  meet  to  teach  us  that  all  men  are 
brethren,  then  the  men  who  join  a  guild  shake  a  blud- 
geon at  their  brother  and  are  advised  by  a  reckless  king 
to  buy  a  gun.  Some  men  call  this  phenomenon  a  com- 
mercial disturbance.  It  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  In  the 
South  Sea  Islands  it  is  barbarism,  among  the  carnivorous 


DAYID   SWING.  41 

animals  it  is  called  ferosity,   in  our  civilized  land  it  is 
infamy. 

The  Organization  of  Unions. 

It  seems  evident  that  Christianity  asks  laborers  to  be 
organized  into  societies.  If  a  church  may  be  organized 
that  Christians  may  help  each  other  and  confer  with  each 
other  about  all  things  that  pertain  to  the  church,  why 
may  not  carpenters  and  railway  men  form  a  union  that 
many  minds  and  many  hearts  may  find  what  is  best  for 
the  toilers  in  their  field.  The  word  church  means  a 
gathering  of  people,  but  if  the  exigencies  of  religion  may 
demand  an  assembly  so  may  the  exigencies  of  a  trade. 
But  none  of  these  assemblages  can  sustain  any  relations 
whatever  to  violence  or  any  kind  of  interference  with  the 
liberty  or  rights  of  man.  For  a  vast  group  of  railway  men 
to  sign  away  their  personal  liberty  and  permit  some  one 
man  to  order  them  around  as  though  slaves  is  a  spectacle 
pitiful  to  look  upon,  but  to  band  together  for  interference 
with  the  rights  of  man  is  not  a  mental  v;cakness,  but  a 
:rime. 

It  is  a  great  task  for  a  labor  guild  to  study  and  fully 
xcarn  what  are  the  facts  and  the  need  itself.  Before  men 
quit  their  employers  they  should  all  know  the  reason  of 
the  move.  After  men  have  been  idle  for  a  winter  and 
have  come  to  regular  work  and  regular  pay,  if  they 
hasten  to  strike  their  reason  ought  to  be  so  large  that  the 
whole  world  can  see  it.  But  we  do  things  differently  ii^ 
enlightened  America.  Our  men  hasten  to  throw  down 
tools  and  their  wages,  and  at  last,  when  starving,  they 
ask  some  committee  to  make  a  microscopical  search  for 
the  reason  of  the  distress.  And  before  this  reason  is 
known,  eminent  men  express  themselves  as  in  fall  sym- 
pathy with  it.     All  the  ratlway  wheels  in   America  were 


42  KCHOES 

ordered  to  stop  out  of  sympathy  with  a  reason  which  a 
committee  was  looking  for  with  a  microscope.  The  rail- 
ways were  giving  work  to  four  millions  of  people.  This 
work  was  "called  off"  by  a  man  with  some  telegraph 
blanks,  and  the  poor  families  supported  by  the  North- 
western lost  $200,000,  the  workmen  of  the  Illinois  Central 
$164,000.  of  the  Milwaukee  and  St.  Paul  $175,000,  and 
thus  on  to  the  millions,  all  which  loss  was  ordered  from 
sympathy  with  men  who  were  getting  $600  a  year. 

No  Time  for  Despots. 

L,abor  unions  will  waste  their  work  by  the  millions  of 
dollars'  worth  and  will  soil  their  name  and  ruin  the  sym- 
pathy of  literature,  art,  and  religion,  as  long  as  they 
trust  their  cause  to  hot-headed,  ignorant,  illogical  men. 
Labor  should  have  for  its  chieftains  our  Franklins  or  our 
John  Stuart  Mills.  These  should  be  its  guide.  If  our 
land  possesses  no  such  minds,  then  are  we  on  the  eve  of 
untold  misfortune.  When  labor  shall  have  Franklins  for 
its  walking  delegates,  it  will  enter  upon  a  new  career. 
Capital  will  confer  with  it.  Congresses  of  workingmen 
will  meet,  and  men  will  find  the  wages  of  each  toiler  and 
of  each  new  period,  but  nothing  can  be  done  by  a  foolish 
despot  with  a  club.  Yes,  something  can  be  done^the 
Republic  can  be  hopelessly  ruined  through  a  ruined 
manhood. 

The  wages  and  whole  welfare  of  the  laboring  man  have 
been  much  advanced  in  twenty-five  years,  but  the  gun 
and  club  have  taken  no  part  in  this  progress.  Conference, 
thought,  reason,  benevolence,  have  accomplished  the 
blessed  task,  and  they  will  do  much  more  when  they  are 
invited  to  help  our  race.  Moral  power  makes  laws.  It 
shames  the  guilty.     It  dissolves  adamant.      It  founded 


DAVID    SWING.  43 

the   Christian   church.      It   has   civilized  whole  races ; 
it  has  emancipated  the  mind;    it  has  freed  slaves. 

It  may  easily  be  remembered  that  a  London  man  a 
few  yesrs  ago  unveiled  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  poor 
young  girls  This  inju.stice  did  not  need  to  be  examined 
by  a  microscope.  The  heart  of  London  became  aflame 
with  indignation.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and 
the  Archbishop  of  Westminster,  Cardinal  Manning,  the 
Bishop  of  London,  Sir  William  Harcourt,  and  Sir  Richard 
Cross  flung  their  minds  and  hearts  into  the  cause  and  the 
Parliament  passed  a  new  law  for  the  longer  and  diviner 
protection  of  girls. 

Power  of  Moral  Influence. 

To  man}'  labor  unions  all  talk  of  moral  power  carries 
the  weight  of  only  nonsense.  The  moral  influence  the- 
ory is  indeed  defective,  but  it  is  the  only  one  within 
human  reach.  If  a  dezen  men  should  resolve  that  they 
have  rights  to  seats  in  a  street  car,  their  theory  seems 
good,  but  on  getting  into  one  of  these  vehicles  they  find 
the  seats  all  taken.  Unless  they  can  club  those  persons 
out  of  those  seats  the  theory  of  those  dozen  unionists  is 
very  defective.  When  a  man  resolves  that  he  ought  to 
sit  down  and  then  stands  up,  his  resolution  is  defective. 
But  what  makes  it  defective  ?  The  rights  of  the  man  who 
is  sitting  down.  So  when  a  set  of  men  resolve  that  they 
will  work  only  for  four  dollars  a  day  they  hold  an  im- 
perfect platform  because  of  the  rights  of  the  men  who 
will  work  for  three  dollars.  Should  a  clergyman  resign 
his  pnlpit  because  his  people  will  not  pay  him  $6,000  a 
year  his  theory  is  incomplete,  indeed,  unless  he  can  kill 
the  preachers  who  will  come  for  $5,000.  But  he  must  go 
to  and  fro  with  his  imperfect  theory.  It  is  .spoiled  by  the 
rights  of  other  preachers.     Thus,  against  all  labor  unions 


44  ECHOES 

not  strictly  moral,  the  laws  of  the  human  race  rise  up. 
The  rights  of  mankind  oppose  them.  All  society  is 
founded  upon  the  rights  of  man,  not  of  the  man  who 
works  for  $3  a  da}^  but  of  the  man  also  who  works  for 
$1  or  for  any  sum  whate\  er.  Any  force  in  a  labor  union 
means  anarchy.  A  guild  without  violence  may  be  im- 
perfect, but  with  violence  it  is  infamous. 

They  Need  Good  I^eaders. 

Where  would  our  city  and  perhaps  our  Nation  have 
been  in  this  September  had  not  the  laborers  in  the  town 
of  Pullman  and  in  the  whole  land  been  for  the  most  part 
law-abiding?  The  churches  may  confess  the  rashness  of 
the  strike,  but  we  must  forgive  the  mistakes  of  those  who 
respected  the  rights  of  mankind  and  the  laws  ot  the  land. 
Many  toilers  were  so  patient  and  law-abiding  as  to  give 
promise  of  being  worthy  citizens  of  a  great  country. 
What  all  those  workmen  need  is  a  leadership  worthy  of 
their  cause  or  their  flag. 

The  flag  of  labor  is  a  perfectly  glorious  one — too  grand 
to  be  carried  by  a  fanatic  or  a  simpleton  or  a  criminal. 
Capital  is  nothing  until  labor  takes  hold  of  it.  A  bag 
will  hold  money,  but  a  bag  cannot  transform  that  money 
into  an  iron  road,  a  bridge,  a  train  of  cars,  an  engine. 
An  armful  of  bonds  did  not  fling  the  bridge  over  the  arm 
of  the  sea  at  Edinburgh;  the  bonds  of  England  did  not 
join  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Red  Sea;  gold  did  not 
erect  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  nor  did  it  lift  up  any  of  the 
sublime  or  beautiful  things  in  any  art.  Money  came 
along  and  attempted  to  buy  the  canvases  of  angels,  but  it 
did  not  paint  them.  The  millions  of  people  who  came 
here  last  summer  did  not  come  to  see  the  millions  of 
money,  but  to  see  what  labor  had  done  with  money,  and 
they  saw  a  great  spectacle.     What  domes  1    What  arches! 


DAVID    SWING.  45 

What  "Courts  of  Honor!"  What  canals!  What  statues! 
What  machines!  What  pictures!  What  jewels!  What 
thought!  What  taste!  What  love!  And  yet  the  whole 
scene  was  the  matchless  emblazonry  of  labor.  As  God 
manifests  himself  in  the  external  objects  of  earth  and  in 
the  millions  of  stars,  thus  man  speaks  by  his  works  and 
in  our  world  labor  sits  enthroned.  Capital  is  a  store- 
house of  seeds,  labor  is  their  field,  their  soil,  their  rain, 
and  their  summer  time.  Over  a  potency  so  vast  and  god- 
like only  Wisdom  herself  should  preside.  If  our  age 
has  any  great  men — men  whose  hearts  are  warm  and 
pure,  and  whose  minds  are  large  as  the  world,  it  should 
ask  them  to  preside  over  the  tasks  and  wages  of  the 
laborer.  Anarchy,  crime,  and  folly  should  be  asked  to 
stand  back.  Those  three  demons  may  be  called  to  the 
front  when  our  laborers  are  seeking  for  poverty  and 
disgrace. 

I/abor  Hostile  to  I^abor. 

You  have  all  heard  of  the  hostility  of  capital  and  labor. 
But  there  is  no  special  truth  in  the  phrase.  I^abor  is  just 
as  hostile  to  labor.  The  whole  truth  is  this:  Man  is 
not  anxious  to  spend  his  money.  There  is  a  saying  that 
"the  fool  and  his  money  are  soon  parted,"  but  we  have 
not  reached  the  maxim  that  labor  loves  to  make  presents 
to  labor.  Did  you  ever  know  a  blacksmith  who  was 
happy  to  pay  large  bills  to  the  plumber  ?  Are  the  carpen- 
ters anxious  to  have  their  tailors  advance  the  price  of  a 
suit  of  clothes  ?  Are  the  "walking  delegates"  for  the 
plasterers  anxious  to  pay  the  farmer  a  dollar  for  wheat  ? 
If  reports  be  true  there  are  laboring  men  in  the  West  who 
are  so  hostile  to  the  labor  of  their  brothers  that  they  are 
going  to  buy  most  all  needful  things  in  the  shops  of  Eng- 
land.    Thus  labor  is  as  great  an  enemy  of  labor  as  it  is  oi 


46  ECHOES 

capital.  The  hostiliU'  between  labor  and  monej'  is  a 
mischievous  fiction  gotten  up  by  dreamers  and  profes- 
sional grumblers,  who  wish  to  ride  into  oiHce  or  fame  bj^ 
parading  a  love  for  the  multitude.  This  false  love  ought 
soon  to  end  its  destructive  career.  L,ast  June  and  July  it 
cost  the  workingmen  many  millions  of  dollars.  Had 
some  walking  delegates  of  Christianity  told  these  men 
thaflabor  and  capital  are  eternal  friends;  that  labor  is 
the  language  o^  money,  the  body  it  assumes,  the  life  it 
lives,  our  summer  would  have  been  full  of  industry  and 
honor.  Hew  could  Krupp  hate  the  men  who  are  doing 
his  will  ij  massive  iron  ?  How  could  Field  hate  the  men 
who  were  'aving  his  cable  in  the  ocean  ?  The  church 
must  help  stamp  all  our  industrial  falsehoods  into  the 
dust  and  must  wave  over  all  men  the  flag  of  brotherhood. 

The  New  Humane  Philosopliy. 

So  rapidly  has  friendship  grown  between  capital  and 
labor  that  a  law  is  now  before  the  British  Parliament 
looking  to  a  compensation  to  each  laborer  or  his  family 
for  injuries  the  workingman  may  have  received  in  the 
execution  of  his  task.  When  passed,  this  law  will  each 
year  give  $10,000,000  to  the  working  class  of  the  three 
islands.  This  law  is  not  coming  from  the  "club"  or 
"gun,"  but  from  the  Christianit}-  of  England. 

This  new  humane  philosophy  has  counted  all  the  toil- 
ers who  have  been  injured  in  their  toil.  It  saw  fifty- 
seven  men  killed  while  building  the  Forth  bridge  and 
one  hundred  and  thirty  die  among  the  wheels  and 
machines  used  in  digging  the  Manchester  canal.  This 
new  kindness  has  studied  longer  and  found  that  of  each 
10,000  men  employed  on  the  railways  fourteen  are  killed 
in  a  year  and  eighty  badly  crippled.  In  the  long  past 
there  was  no  love  that  counted  these  dead  or. injured 


DAVID   SWING.  47 

men.  A  dead  laborer  was  as  a  dead  horse  or  a  dead  dog. 
The  riots  and  destruction  and  barbarity  of  last  July  set 
back  all  this  new  friendship  and  made  brotherl}^  lov'e 
despair  of  the  present  and  future.  The  evil  one  hath 
done  this.  Endless  abuse,  endless  complaint,  endless  vio- 
lence, openly  taught  anarchy,  have  succeeded  in  making 
work  the  enemy  of  money.  You  can  recall  the  Bible 
story  of  the  person  who  came  at  night  and  sowed  tares 
among  the  springing  wheat. 

The  fact  that  the  United  States  army  had  to  hasten 
hither  to  save  life  and  property  cannot  all  be  charged 
upon  the  immigrants  in  our  land.  We  have  of  late  years 
been  producing  a  group  of  Americans  who  care  nothing 
for  right  or  wrong  and  who  have  become  the  masters  of 
all  the  forms  of  abuse  and  discontent.  It  is  evident  that 
the  influx  of  anarchists  ought  to  cease  but  we  must  not 
forget  the  crop  our  Nation  is  growing  out  of  its  own  soil. 
All  the  cities  seem  uniting  to  make  law  ridiculous.  The 
alien  who  will  sell  his  vote  for  a  few  shillings  is  not  so 
low  as  the  American  who  will  prefer  these  votes  to  prin- 
ciples. The  immigrant  may  act  through  the  absence  of 
patriotismfor  hisnew  land  but  the  American  acts  through 
total  depravity. 

The  foreigners  are  generally  manipulated  by  political 
confidence  men  who  are  home-made. 

The  Making  of  Christian  Character. 

The  general  theme  of  this  morning  is  too  large  for  the 
narrow  limits  of  an  essay,  but  it  is  possible  for  us  to  feel 
that  our  great  Christian  organism  ought  to  be  applied 
from  these  dark  days  onward  to  the  making  of  the 
Christlike  character.  The  church,  Catholic  and  Protest- 
ant, has  lived  for  all  other  causes,  let  it  at  last  live  for 
a  high   intelligence  and  for   individual   righteousness. 


48  ECHOES 

Literature  and  science  and  the  public  press  will  help  the 
church.  All  these  wide-open  and  anxious  eyes  must 
perceive  clearly  that  our  national  and  personal  happiness 
must  come  from  the  study  and  obedience  of  that  kind  of 
ethics  which  became  so  brilliant  in  Palestine.  Our  Jew- 
ish friends  need  not  call  it  Christian  and  our  rationalized 
minds  need  not  call  it  divine.  What  is  desirable  and 
essential  is  that  its  spirit  shall  sweep  over  us.  Called 
by  any  name  it  is  a  perfect  salvation  for  our  country  and 
for  each  soul.  The  time  and  money  the  church  has 
given  to  metaphysical  inquir}^  and  teaching  have  been  a 
total  loss.  In  the  great  college  courses  there  are  studies 
in  classic  language  and  in  high  mathematics  that 
strengthen  the  intellect,  but  no  such  virtue  has  ever  been 
found  to  flow  from  the  theological  studies  of  the  church. 
For  hundreds  of  years  the  mind  has  found  in  these 
enigmas  its  slow  doctrine.  There  thousands,  even  mil- 
lions, of  thinkers  have  found  their  grave.  There  the 
colossal  mind  of  even  a  Pascal  grew  confused  and  weak. 
There  great  men  have  lost  their  blessed  earth  while 
they  were  fighting  over  the  incomprehensible.  God  did 
not  give  man  this  globe  that  it  might  be  made  a  desert 
or  a  battlefield,  but  that  it  might  be  made  the  great 
home  of  great  men. 

Kingdom  of  I^aw  and  I^ove. 

As  often  as  creeds  and  dogmas  have  detached  the 
mind  from  humanity,  literature  and  art  and  science  have 
rushed  in  to  save  the  precious  things  of  society.  But 
these  agencies  have  done  this  only  b)'  carrying  in  prose 
and  verse  and  science  the  laws  of  love,  duty,  and  justice, 
by  delineating  man  as  a  brother  of  all  men  and  as  a  sub- 
ject in  the  might}'  kingdom  of  law  and  love.  In  an  age 
and  in  a   Republic  marked  by  an  amazing  efibrt  to  turn 


DAVID  SWING.  49 

all  things,  all  days,  all  life  into  gold,  our  pulpits  must 
make  a  new  eifort  to  reveal  and  create  man  the  spiritual 
being,  man  temperate,  man  studious,  man  a  lover  of 
justice,  man  the  brother,  man  Christlike.  The  same 
science  that  is  seeking  and  finding  the  sources  of  wealth 
and  that  is  filling  the  young  mind  with  longings  to  be 
rich  can  find  and  teach  all  the  worth  of  a  man  as  a 
spiritual  being,  and  can  compel  a  great  Nation  and  a 
great  manhood  to  spring  up  from  the  philosophy  of  the 
soul. 

To  reach  a  result  so  new  and  so  great  the  pulpit  must 
select  new  themes.  It  must  cull  them  from  the  field 
where  the  mob  raves,  from  the  shops  where  men  labor, 
from  the  poverty  in  which  men  die,  from  the  office  where 
wealth  counts  its  millions.  Even  so  beclouded  a  pagan 
as  Virgil  sang  that  when  the  mob  is  throwing  stones 
and  firebrands  and  is  receiving  weapons  from  its  fury  if 
wisdom  will  only  become  visible  and  speak  to  them  they 
will  listen  and  at  last  obey.  We  have  the  mob,  it  is 
high  time  for  a  divine  wisdom  to  speak  to  it. 

Our  planet  not  only  rolls  on  in  the  embrace  of  the 
laws  of  gravitation,  of  light  and  heat,  vegetable  and 
animal  life,  and  in  the  strange  encompassment  of  the 
electric  ether,  but  it  flies  onward  amid  spiritual  laws  far 
more  wonderful — laws  of  labor  and  rest,  laws  of  mental 
and  moral  progress,  laws  of  perfect  justice  and  of  uni- 
versal love.  Oh,  that  God,  by  his  almighty  power,  may- 
hold  back  our  Nation  from  destruction  for  a  few  more 
perilous  years,  that  it  may  learn  where  lie  the  paths  in 
which  as  brothers  just  and  loving  all  may  walk  to  the 
most  of  excellence  and  the  most  of  happiness. 

END    OF   SERMON. 


50  ECHOES 

Another  and  a  Greater  "Gettysburg." 

One  pageant  has  passed  by,  but  another  must  come. 
The  material  scene  that  we  call  "Gettysburg"  or  "An- 
tietam"  must  all  be  reproduced  in  the  spiritual  domain. 
The  first  style  of  army  has  become  silent.  The  second 
style  of  army  must  become  eloquent.  Generals  and  sol- 
diers have  passed  from  these  battle  fields,  and  the  major- 
ity of  them  have  passed  from  life.  The  great  Generals 
have  passed  away  from  these  scenes,  but  these  falling 
leaders  only  tell  what  death  has  been  doing  in  that  larger 
host.  As  Grant  and  Sherman  and  Sheridan  have  become 
silent,  thus  silent  have  become  the  regiments  they  led. 
How  these  heroes  and  troops  filed  along  in  youth  and 
power  thirty  3'ears  ago!  They  kept  time  on  the  streets 
of  all  our  cities,  "pouring  onward  to  the  ranks  of  war." 
What  martial  music  filled  the  air!  What  cheers  from  the 
homes!  How  proud  seemed  the  flags  of  the  Nation,  how 
solemn  seemed  the  rumble  of  the  artillery.  Often  all  day 
and  all  night  the  men  and  the  equipments  of  war  poured 
along  like  a  river  in  its  flood.  The  lines  of  the  great 
Italian  come  to  memory: 

It  hath  been  long  ago  my  destiny  to  see 
Horsemen  with  martial  order  shifting  camp, 
To  onset  sallying  or  in  muster  ranged. 
Light  armed  squadrons  and  swift  foragers 
Scouring  thy  plains,  Arezzo. 

Oh,  what  a  memory  beyond  the  power  of  poet's  pen  or 
painter's  pencil!  A  scene  now  all  sleeping  in  history. 
This  first  pageant  gone,  the  second  must  spread  before 
living  eyes  its  new  form  of  impressiveness.  New  leaders 
must  come.  New  armies  must  move.  New  flags  must 
wave.  The  soldiers  of  literature,  the  heroes  of  a  high 
and  noble  politics,  the  regiments  in  pursuit  of  beauty, 


DAVID   SWING.  51 

the  volunteers  of  Nazareth,  the  soldiers  of  the  infinite  God, 
the  vast  army  of  the  highest  happiness  and  the  highest 
right,  must  come  and  march  and  remarch,  not  with  guns 
and  with  garments  dj'ed  in  blood,  but  arrayed  in  all  the 
jeweled  draperies  of  peace.  These  must  be  eloquent  to 
atone  for  those  who  are  silent ;  these  must  advance  with 
bosom  full  of  all  high  purpose,  and  must  step  with  liv- 
ing foot  and  inspired  heart  among  the  three  hundred 
thousand  graves  of  the  dead. 

Pigeons  and  Doves. 

It  may  be  all  our  pigeons  and  doves  came  from  some 
brown  bird  of  the  woods,  but  they  will  never  all  meet 
again  in  the  unity  of  that  brown  bird.  So  our  thousands 
of  roses  have  come  from  one  wild  rose,  but  they  can 
never  return  to  that  "mother  bloom."  So  if  Rome  was 
indeed  the  "Mother  Church"  of  us  all,  her  scattered 
children  might  pause  to  bless  her  memory,  but  they  can 
never  find  a  path  of  return.  As  among  the  many  roses 
there  is  a  certain  unity  blessed  to  behold,  but  as  their 
variety  is  everlasting,  and  can  never  be  gathered  up  into 
the  first  leaf  and  first  bud,  so  the  "Mother  Church"  has 
scattered  her  children  to  the  four  winds  of  thought  and 
will  never  see  Vtiem  around  her  hearthstone  again.  The 
only  result  to  be  hoped  for  and  prayed  for  is  that  all  her 
Protestant  children  may  meet  some  day  at  the  hearth- 
stone of  the  infinite  God. 

The    Insanity  of  Fanatics. 

What  all  parties  need  is  to  be  delivered  from  the  insan- 
ity of  fanatics.  But  inasmuch  as  a  minority  in  each 
nation  is  ruled  by  fanaticism,  and  since  many  pulpits, 
both  Catholic  and  Protestant,  are  filled  by  men  whose 
blind  passions  unfit  them  to  teach  or  inflnence  any  assem- 


52  ECHOES 

blage,  the  calmer  minds  of  these  two  churches  must  make 
conspicuous  the  flag  of  the  new  Christian  friendship, — 
a  friendship  that  in  argument  can  differ  all  day  long  and 
then  sit  at  the  same  table  at  sunset.  All  ihe  people  must 
be  taught  that  persecution  is  far  away  in  the  foolish  past 
and  that  the  era  of  wisdom  and  love  has  fully  come. 
There  is  indeed  a  discord  between  the  two  great  bodies, 
but  compared  with  the  bloody  past  the  discord  is  changed 
to  harm  on}'.  We  cannot  expect  all  history  to  be  fully 
erased  in  a  day,  but  we  can  expect  its  crimson  colors  to 
fade. 

Dr.  R.  W.  Patterson. 

A  very  great  clergyman  of  our  city,  Rev.  R.  W.  Pat- 
terson, ha.':  just  gone  from  life,  leaving  behind  him  a  new 
Presbyterianism  on  whose  fair  proportions  and  beauties 
he  had  toiled  for  a  half  hundred  3'ears.  From  youth  he 
possessed  a  clear  vision.  Born  in  a  slave  State,  he  could 
look  beyond  its  borders  and  detect  Liberty  standing  as 
divine  as  John's  angel  in  the  sun.  He  turned  his  eye 
toward  the  Calvinistic  philosophj'  and  there  saw  the  love 
of  God  in  chains  more  ironlike  than  those  which  held  the 
African.  Both  on  earth  and  in  heaven  love  and  justice 
seemed  deeply  disgraced.  He  saw  also  a  creed  which, 
instead  of  teaching  the  simple  gospel  of  Jesus,  exulted  in 
the  utterance  of  mj'steries  which  not  even  an  archangel 
could  fathom.  While  yet  a  yo'ung  man,  only  passing 
out  of  the  hardships  of  poverty,  he  began  to  hope  for  and 
work  for  the  higher  excellence  of  his  church.  As  soon 
as  this  golden  century  discovered  some  better  doctrine  in 
theolog}'  or  ethics  he  went  with  it  to  his  own  sanctuary 
and  attempted  to  fasten  the  new  blossoms  to  its  old  altar. 
He  always  went  softly  and  bowing  in  reverence  as  he 
went,    but  now  looking   from   his   grave   toward  those 


DAVID   SWING. 


53 


altars,  we  see  that  the  wreaths  of  new  truth  are  all  there. 
The  youuger  pastors  of  the  west  find  the  sermon  broader, 
richer,  more  human,  more  Christlike,  and  more  spirited. 
Should  they  seek  the  reason  of  this  new  intelligence  and 
of  this  diviner  spirit  thej^  would  find  a  part  of  that  reason 
in  the  fact  that  the  lofty  form  buried  only  yesterday  toiled 
for  a  long  time  to  empty  the  pulpit  of  great  deformity 
and  make  it  eloquent  with  Christian  truth.  His  mantle 
need  not  fall  upon  any  one  mind.  So  rapid  is  the 
spreading  of  truth  in  our  era  that  when  this  robe  of  an 
Elijah  falls  from  heroic  shoulders  it  is  caught  not  by  a 
person  but  by  an  age. 

I^iterature  too  ligrht. 

Our  age  would  be  rapidly  molding  our  eighty  millions 
if  its  literature  were  as  great  as  it  is  abundant.  But  the 
greater  part  of  it  is  light.  It  is  a  love  story  or  a  joke. 
Its  aim  is  the  happiness  of  to-day  and  not  the  mighty 
civilization  of  the  morrow.  It  has  purity,  indeed,  and 
has  merit,  indeed,  but  it  has  the  worth  of  silver  rather 
than  the  worth  of  gold.  We  read,  we  enjoy,  we  smile,  we 
laugh;  but  we  pnt  aside  the  volume  and  find  our  world 
no  greater  than  it  was  before  the  book  came.  This  light- 
ness would  do  less  harm  if  the  new  generation  held  that 
wisdom  that  could  mingle  the  gay  present  with  the  tre- 
mendous past  ;  but  the  new  millions  do  not  go  to  the 
past,  the}^  always  run  to  the  arms  of  the  present.  To 
the  young  there  is  only  one  June — the  one  just  before 
them,  but  to  the  older  hearts  the  Junes  are  many  and  run 
back  to  the  centuries  that  are  gone. 

"When  the  higher  politics  shall  come!*' 

When   the   higher  politics  shall  come  the  great  houses 
assembled   at   Washington  will  not  trifle  will  the  people 


54  ECHOES 

all  through  dark  days.  They  will  issue  great  open 
letters  of  sympathy  and  hope,  and  the  scattered  millions 
will  feel  that  their  law-makers  are  sad  in  their  sorrow 
and  have  only  one  wish — to  find  the  immediate  happi- 
ness of  the  people. 

Decoration  Day. 

Decoration  Day  comes  now  like  our  other  national 
days — not  with  a  roll-call  of  any  enemies,  but  with  a 
loving  roll-call  of  friends.  As  in  our  July  festival,  there 
is  no  anger  toward  King  George  or  Victoria,  or  England, 
so  in  this  May  celebration  there  is  no  wrath  hidden  or 
expressed  for  the  Johnsons  and  Lees  and  Jacksons  who 
led  once  the  hosts  who  fought  against  the  country.  The 
prosperity  of  the  country,  its  peace  and  greatness,  and 
that  these  were  bought  with  the  life  of  an  army  now 
invisible  in  the  spirit  world,  are  the  thoughts  which  fill 
these  passing  hours.  And  the  God  of  nature  helps  all 
these  memorial  periods  in  our  world,  whether  they  lie  in 
religion  or  political  life,  by  His  universal  law  that  anger 
shall  be  temporary  and  good  will  perpetual.  Nature 
"has  made  storms  transient,  the  blue  sky  more  constant. 

When  Citizens  are  Followers  of  Christ. 

Happy  day  for  our  world  when  each  citizen  shall  be  a 
follower  of  Jesus  and  shall  have  a  nameless  church  in  his 
own  soul!  His  church  will  not  need  a  long  history 
because  its  greatness  will  not  be  back  of  the  worshiper — 
a  greatness  mingled  with  blood  and  injustice,  but  this 
religious  magnificence  will  all  be  within.  Each  heart 
will  have  its  own  priest  and  altar  and  sacraments.  Its 
own  bells  of  worship  will  ring  in  the  soul.  In  that  holy 
place  perpetual  chants  shall  sound.  Then  church  names 
will  be  almost   forgotten  ;    and   holy   men   and   women 


DAVID   SWING.  55 

looking  up  through  the  blossoming  trees  or  through  their 
tears  of  joy  and  hope  will  at  last  read  on  thf!  sky  the 
words  of  Jesus:  "The  kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you." 

A  Touch  of  Satire. 

Are  we  to  suppose  that  the  Catholics  and  Protestants 
who  are  now  combining  to  suppress  low-lived  literature 
are  planning  to  burn  each  other  at  the  stake  ?  Why  toil 
to  suppress  vulgar  books  if  these  men  are  about  to  make 
murder  a  part  of  the  gospel  ?  When  we  Protestants  are 
invited  to  dine  with  Bishop  Ireland  or  Cardinal  Gibbons 
must  we  look  out  for  poison  in  our  coiFee  ?  Must,  we 
carry  a  pistol  in  our  dress  coat  ?  Recently  the  Pope  has 
issued  an  order  that  the  clergy  of  Spain  must  not  attend 
the  bull  fights  hereafter.  Is  this  order  issued  because 
Leo  XIII.  wishes  the  Catholic  clergy  to  give  their  undi- 
vided attention  to  the  killing  of  Protestants  ? 

Spirituous  Drink  the  Death  of  Thought. 

Some  of  the  old  poets  thought  the  drinking-cup  was  a 
cup  of  poetry  and  eloquence,  but  the  delusion  has  died 
under  the  accumulating  witnesses  of  all  times.  Each 
glass  of  spirituous  drink  is  the  death  of  clear  and  beauti- 
ful thought.  The  tongue  thickens,  the  words  lose  their 
sharp  outline,  the  eye  its  flash  under  even  the  best  of 
wines.  When  God  made  man.  He  declared  a  partnership 
between  temperance  and  inspiration,  and  made  a  cup  of 
the  emblem  of  all  clear  thought. 

Nature  Speaking  to  Man. 

When  the  lonely  traveler  finds  himself  in  France  or 
Germany,  how  much  he  wishes  his  lips  could  speak  its 
language!     Such   a   power    would    make    Germany    or 


56  ECHOES 

France  seem  like  home.  Thus  education  is  an  acquaint- 
ance with  ail  the  voices  of  the  world.  The  educated 
mind  understands  the  language  of  the  fields  and  the 
forests;  let  the  stars  speak  to  him  in  familiar  words;  the 
winds  come  in  intelligible  whisperings;  he  understands 
the  songs  of  the  birds;  the  flowers  use  his  soul's  dialect; 
he  is  deaf  and  dumb  no  longer;  he  hears  all  sounds;  he 
speaks  all  languages;  thesea  iseloquent;the  hills  poetic. 
This  education  is  valuable,  not  only  because  of  its  rela- 
tions to  reading,  writing  and  arithmetic,  but  also  because 
it  introduces  man  to  the  world.  The  plowed-up  daisy 
drew  the  compassion  of  Robert  Burns,  the  skylark  and 
Shelle}'  became  friends;  thus  into  the  educated  heart  as 
into  an  urn  the  world  empties  all  wisdom  and  beauty. 

Kindness  Cannot  Cease. 

If  our  infinite  Father  would  mold  all  the  millions  of 
earth  by  influences  forever  sweet,  gentle  and  most  loving, 
then  that  kindness  cannot  cease.  It  will  invade  the 
morrow  as  it  invaded  the  yesterday,  and  when  death 
comes  to  man  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  in  this  last 
will  be  as  gentle  as  the  touch  of  a  mother.  God  does  not 
fling  stones  at  his  children.  When  Dante  saw  the  divine 
chariot  passing  along  on  the  border  of  heaven,  a  sweet 
light  was  above  it  and  the  wheels  were  almost  blocked 
with  flowers. 

A  State  Church  Not  Possible. 

The  epoch  of  a  dominant  state  church  has  passed  by. 
It  is  told  of  an  Episcopal  bishop  that  he  hoped  for  a  day 
when  all  denominations  would  be  one,  and  that  one 
Episcopalian.  There  is  no  reason  why  some  ardent 
Baptist  might  not  cherish  for  his  sect  the  same  hope. 
What  we  cannot  expect  for  the  Episcopalian  or  the  Bap- 


DAVID   SWING.  57 

list  we  cannot  expect  or  fear  of  the  Roman  Catholics. 
In  barbarism  minds  may  unite;  in  civilization  they 
move  toward  variety.  There  may  come  a  unity  of  hearts 
but  not  a  unity  of  thought  and  doctrine.  Thought  open- 
like a  fan,  but  it  never  closes  again.  If  Rome  once 
possessed  the  christian  world  it  can  never  again  enjoy 
such  a  possession.  It  is  vain  to  call  her  our  "  mother," 
for  when  the  children  are  old  and  scattered  their 
"mother"  is  gone.  Kgypt  was  the  "Mother  of  Na- 
tions." The  Greek  and  Aryan  and  Hebrew  worlds 
flowed  down  from  the  wisdom  along  the  Nile,  but  Egypt 
cannot  recall  her  children  and  enjoy  again  the  unity  she 
saw  when  the  world  was  young.  So  the  Latin  empire 
became  again  the  "Mother  of  States  "  and,  after  the 
unity  of  Julius  Caesar,  came  the  children  called  Spain, 
France,  England,  Germany,  Norway,  and  Sweden,  but 
that  old  Latin  mother  can  never  call  in  these  nations  and 
change  their  customs  back  into  Latin  customs  and  their 
languages  into  the  tongue  spoken  by  Cicero.  After 
the  children  have  come  the  mother  disappears. 

The  Human  Feet  Must  Tramp. 

To  other  sources  of  civilization  must  be  added  the 
pursuit  of  all  high  and  noble  beauty.  It  is  admitted 
that  the  pursuit  of  the  beautiful  will  not  always  bring 
virtue,  but  its  conquests  are  very  great.  It  gives  to  the 
young  and  the  old  a  blessed  reason  of  being.  It  makes 
paths  that  are  of  more  attraction  than  those  of  sin.  The 
human  feet  must  tramp,  tramp.  They  are  sandaled  for 
all  the  bright  days  of  many  a  year.  Art  can  open  up 
before  society  many  paths  far  more  attractive  than  those 
of  vice  or  crime.  The  educated  mind  is  afraid  of  vice. 
Of  two  paths  it  will  select  the  one  bordered  with  the 
richer  flowers. 


58  ECHOES 

Man's  Thoughts  Invisible. 

In  the  class  of  the  beautiful  comes  literature.  It 
differs  from  painting,  sculpture  and  music  onl}^  in  this — 
its  thoughts  have  no  sensual  form.  The  eye,  ear,  and 
touch  cannot  find  them.  We  can  hear  a  sonata  of 
Beethoven,  but  we  cannot  hear  our  reflections  on  immor- 
tality or  our  happiness  over  Virgil  or  Shakespeare.  All 
is  within.  Man's  thoughts  are  invisible.  The  painter 
needs  a  canvas,  the  sculptor  a  piece  of  marble,  the 
musician  a  piano,  but  the  literary  taste  and  art  need 
nothing  but  the  soul.  When  the  heart  is  alone  its 
orchestra  and  gallery  are  within.  The  spiritual  instru- 
ments are  played  by  spiritual  hands. 

We  Cannot  Wait  for  Names. 

The  Presbyterians  called  themselves  the  "Old"  and 
"  New,"  but  in  names  there  is  no  intrinsic  value.  The 
Baptists  do  not  say  anything  about  "old  "  and  "  new," 
but  if  any  one  will  read  the  recent  papers  and  addresses 
about  the  contents  of  the  Old  Testament  they  will  per- 
ceive that  "  New  Baptists  "  have  fully  come.  The  age 
is  too  great  to  wait  for  names  to  be  given.  A  strong, 
healthy,  laughing  baby  does  not  refuse  to  grow  simpl}^ 
because  the  name  and  baptism  have  not  appeared.  After 
awhile  it  will  creep  out  of  its  cradle;  it  will  walk  and 
talk  and  run  with  the  utmost  disregard  of  the  delay  of 
the  robed  clergyman  and  his  drops  of  holy,  naming 
water.  Thus  the  name  of  ' '  New  Baptist "  or  "  New 
Catholic"  is  not  of  any  worth.  Without  any  advent  of 
title  these  children  of  the  nineteenth  centurj^  have 
escaped  from  the  cradle  and  are  running  around  happy 
and  loose. 


DAVID   SWING.  59 

God  and  the  People. 

In  our  day  the  danger  of  a  religious  war  is  made  less 
by  the  fact  that  the  Roman  Church  has  found  its  great- 
est enfemy  to  be  contained  in  the  words  "Deism"  and 
'  'unbelief. ' '  The  majority  of  mankind  is  drifting  toward 
unbelief.  It  was  not  Protestantism  that  took  Italy  away 
from  the  Papal  throne.  No  Protestants  disturbed  Italy, 
but  there  came  instead  a  political  science  like  that  of 
Franklin  and  Jefferson.  Mazzini  as  early  as  1831  organ- 
ized a  society  called  '  'Young  Italy, ' '  Its  purpose  was  an 
escape  from  despotism,  its  motto  was  that  of  Voltaire 
and  Paine:   "God  and  the  People." 

What  is  a  Church? 

The  word  '  'church' '  contains  no  longer  its  old  signifi- 
cance. Civilization  has  broken  the  church  into  a  million 
fragmrnts.  The  words  "piety,"  "righteousness"  and 
"love"  have  expel'ed  ecclesiasticism  from  its  throne. 
Wherever  two  Christian  hearts  loving  Christ  and  each- 
other  shall,  unaided  by  priest  or  preacher,  take  the  com- 
munion, at  home  or  abroad,  or  under  a  tree,  pine  or 
palm,  there  will  the  true  church  be,  because  in  presence 
of  two  such  souls  forms  lose  all  their  meaning  and  the 
words  Protestant  and  Catholic  sink.  In  the  communion 
of  the  heart  with  Christ  the  bread  and  wine  handed  the 
lips  by  a  friend  is  better  than  when  offered  by  some  un- 
known priest. 

Harmony  Born  of  I^ove. 

The  education  of  mankind  tends  toward  variety.  We 
now  have  many  forms  of  music,  because  the  minds  of  the 
world  have  moved  out  of  the  simple  primative  taste. 
Each  desirable  object  comes  i;i  multiplicity.  The  richer 
the  soil  and  the  summer,   the  more  varied  the  products, 


6o  ECHOES 

So  as  civilization  advances  it  becomes  many  colored. 
The  only  place  in  which  unity  can  dwell  is  the  heart. 
Different  men  of  a  hundred  creeds  meet  in  the  inner  tem- 
ple of  the  soul.  It  is  the  perfection  of  civilization  to  dif- 
fer in  thought,  but  to  be  one  in  a  divine  friendship. 
There  is  a  unity  of  doctrine,  but  it  is  limited  to  a  few 
great  principles.  Away  from  a  few  universal  truths  the 
harmony  is  composed  wholly  of  love. 

The  Battle  Hymns  of  the  Republic 

Out  of  the  upheaval  of  the  heart  came  with  many 
other  songs  the  "  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic, "  whose 
wonderful  words  and  music  sounded  in  all  the  camps  of 
rest  and  in  all  the  marches  when  full  of  either  victory  or 
defeat.     It  was  always  an  inspiration  : 

Mine  eyes  have  seen  the   glory  of  the  coming  of  the 

Lord, 
He  is  tramping  out   the  vintage   where   the   grapes  of 

wrath  are  stored  ; 
He   hath  loosed   the  fateful  lightnings  of  His   terrible 

swift  sword  ; 

His  truth  is  march'ng  on. 

Of  this  hymn  the  last  verse  stands  almost  without  an 
equal  in  all  the  known  battle  songs  of  any  land : 

In  the  beauty  of  the  lilies  Christ  was  bom  across  the  sea, 
With  a  glory  in  his  bosom  that  transfigures  you  and  me, 
As  he   died  to  make   men  holy  let   us  die  to  make   men 
free, 

While  God  is  marching  on. 

A  poor  Use  of  a  Great  Mind. 
One  of  the  worst  uses  to  which  a  great  mind  can  be 
put   is   that  of  caring  for  a  tremendous  estate.     That 


DAVID  SWING.  6l 

mind  had  better  make  the  estate  less  tremendous  and 
then  have  some  days  and  years  left  for  all  the  beauties  of 
wide  civilization.  One  of  the  American  citizens  has  put 
a  few  millions  into  a  university,  and  when  one  visits  that 
institution  and  sees  the  groups  of  professors  and  the 
army  of  ambitious  students  from  all  parts  of  the  world, 
sees  all  the  matchless  phenomena  of  the  spiritual  realm, 
the  heart  becomes  full  of  the  feeling  that  a  rich  man  is 
ruined  when  he  simply  cares  for  an  immense  estate,  and 
is  re-created  in  God's  image  when  he  gives  it  away. 
Another  rich  man  can  see  a  wonderful  in.stitute  standing 
before  him.  It  scatters  education  to  thou.sands.  It 
cuts  the  coupons  from  bonds  and  turns  them  into  an 
advanced  human  character.  These  millionaires  who  are 
thus  blessing  our  city  and  our  land  widen  their  life  and 
the  public  life  by  becoming  benefactors.  It  is  rumored 
that  coupons  when  due  are  cut  off  with  a  pair  of  scissors. 
If  this  be  true,  no  great  mind  ought  to  be  only  a  pair  of 
scissors.  He  should  be  a  divine  intellect,  and  possess  a 
God-like  pity  for  the  people. 

Our  Nation  must  be  Just. 

If  the  Catholics  are  seeking  political  office  they  are  so 
far  pursuing  their  path  of  political  right.  They  would 
be  a  peculiar  kind  of  American  if  they  were  not  running 
for  office.  There  can  be  complaint,  only  when  the  per- 
sons appointed  or  elected  favor  their  church  to  the  injury 
of  the  office  or  the  Nation.  Up  to  this  date  many  of 
these  persons  are  appointed  not  because  they  are  Catho- 
lics, but  because  they  are  Democrats  or  Republicans  and 
citizens.  Our  Nation  must  be  just,  and  it  cannot  be  just, 
if  it  denies  a  Roman  Catholic  the  right  of  holding  any 
office  within  its  confines. 


62  ECHOES 

Religion  will  no  more  toil  alone. 

Once  we  depended  too  much  upon  the  church.  It 
must  be  only  one  of  the  divine"  graces.  It  is  the  central 
figure  of  the  group.  To  beauty  it  adds  sublimit}-.  But 
religion  will  never  toil  alone  again.  All  morals,  all 
ethics,  all  literature,  all  art,  all  humane  teachings,  all 
studies  in  college  or  at  home,  all  the  little  circles  that 
meet  over  the  pages  of  Browning  or  Shakespeare  or 
Dante,  all  the  libraries,  all  the  rooms  full  of  art  must 
combine  in  this  assault  upon  the  hard  and  insensate 
multitude.  The  people  will  all  be  transformed  as  the 
very  trees  danced  to  that  magic  harp  of  old.  There  need 
be  no  doubt  over  the  result;  for  the  plan  is  that  of 
our  Creator.  He  did  not  send  man  into  this  life  that  he 
might  be  the  "food  for  powder,"  but  that  he  might  be 
transformed  by  heaven's  grace. 

The  Barren  Wars  of  History. 

To  him  who  walks  over  the  fields  of  Waterloo  or  Aus- 
terlitz,  or  who  reads  of  Inkerman  and  Balaklava,  comes 
the  sad  inquiry:  For  what  was  all  this  carnage?  Under 
Tennyson's  poem,  on  the  charge  of  the  "Six  Hundred,'" 
there  is  no  massive  logic  to  check  the  reader's  grief. 
From  the  Russian  and  Turkish  battlefields  thirty  thous- 
and skeletons  were  shipped  to  England  as  bone-dust  to 
be  sold  for  the  English  fields  and  gardens.  Of  the  fifteen 
hundred  battles  recorded  in  history  few  contained  any 
bearing  upon  the  higher  philosophy  of  man's  life.  Even 
Waterloo  offers  to  the  thoughtful  traveler  nothing  but 
sadness.  If  Napoleon  might  have  become  a  despot  his 
defeat  at  Waterloo  only  established  other  despotisms. 
He  could  not  have  added  anything  to  the  terrors  of  the 
Russian  throne.     The  thinking  world  does  not  know  to- 


DAVID   SWING.  63 

day  whether  Napoleon  ought  to  have  failed  or  ought  to 
have  tiiumphed  on  every  battlefield.  Thus  the  soldiers 
of  Wellington  and  Napoleon  did  not  know  for  what  they 
were  bleeding  and  d^ang.  They  were  simply  swept 
along  by  a  blind  passion.  Lord  Byron  could  set  to  his 
rich  music  the  heavy  far  oflF  thunder  of  cannon  as  it  min- 
gled with  the  "sound  of  revelry  by  night,"  he  could  ex- 
press the  sudden  pain  of  friends  parting  never  again  to 
meet,  but  he  could  not  weave  into  his  verse  any  moral 
end  of  truth  or  right  that  might  make  the  battlefield 
grander  than  all  poetry,  nobler  than  the  dazzling  room 
where  "bright  lamps  shone  o'er  fair  women  and  brave 
men."  Victor  Hugo  could  succeed  Byron  with  a  match- 
less prose  and  could  for  a  hundred  pages  follow  the  leaders 
and  troops  from  orchard  to  ravine  and  show  us  how  the 
carnage  moved  from  hedge  out  into  the  wheat  field  and 
along  the  w-agon  roads  of  Nivelles  and  Grenappe  and 
across  a  grave  yard  and  among  the  cottages  of  Longmont, 
but  those  pages  must  close  in  death  and  gloom  absolute, 
there  being  no  divine  logic  to  make  a  pillow  for  the  dy- 
ing or  an  honored  grave  for  the  dead;  but  when  the  poet 
or  historian  touches  those  places  we  shall  this  week  bedeck 
with  flowers,  the  rhetoric  becomes  all  aglow  with  the 
greater  future  of  man,  the  wheat  field  is  trampled  down 
by  patriots,  the  infantry  advances,  the  cavalry  dashes 
along,  the  cannons  roar,  the  music  sounds,  the  flags  wave 
in  the  name  of  a  universal  liberty.  When  the  battle 
opened  men  were  slaves;  when  the  battle  closed  they 
were  free. 

The  Sirens  round  the  Boat  of  Ulysses. 

No  man  ever  surpassed  John  Stuart  Mill  in  the  de- 
partment of  pure  reason.  His  books  remind  one  of 
those  fields   in   Italy   where  it   was  fabled   that  some 


64  ECHOES 

earthly  giants  fought  against  heaven,  and  the  upper 
deities  rained  stones  down  on  the  wicked  men  until  all 
the  terrestrial  warriors  had  sunk  ;  and  to  this  day  no 
plow  can  pass  through  the  field,  so  thick  lie  the  masses 
of  rock.  Thus  Mr.  Mill  flung  reason's  rocks  down  upon 
our  half  crazy  world.  But  here  the  comparison  ends,  for 
his  reason  acted  in  perpetual  kindness,  and  instead  of 
crushing  humanity  it  healed  many  hearts  that  were  half 
broken.  It  is  probable,  could  the  whole  truth  be  known, 
that  this  passing  generation  is  so  full  of  all  kinds  of 
allurements  that  the  culture  of  reason  is  not  so  popular 
as  it  was  a  generation  ago.  In  the  rapid  advance  of 
wealth  amusement  has  assumed  enormous  proportions  ; 
the  appetites  have  increased  in  number  and  in  power  ; 
manj^  new  pleasures  have  been  invented  ;  literature  has 
become  not  solid,  but  delightful ;  novels  are  the  books 
which  sell  best.  The  philosophic  life  has  been  displaced 
by  the  gay  life,  or  the  vague,  dreamy  life.  If  these 
appearances  are  real  they  form  a  dark  cloud  over  the 
heads  of  our  young  men,  for  this  philosophy,  this  reason 
is  a  friend  which  no  generation  and  an  individual  has 
ever  slighted  wdth  impunity.  When  his  soldiers  feared 
that  Ulysses  would  forget  reason  and  listen  to  the  sirens, 
they  tied  him  fast  to  the  shipmast  until  the  vessel  had 
sailed  beyond  the  islands  of  blind  passion.  But  those 
sirens  sang  around  the  boat  of  Ulysses  for  only  a  few 
hours,  but  here  they  sing  around  our  youth  for  more 
than  twenty  years.  If  in  all  that  time  they  once  part 
company  with  reason  their  ship  is  wrecked.  Reason  ij. 
no  beautiful  thing  which  we  may  admire  or  dislike  as 
we  may  choose.  It  is  not  a  song  which  you  may  heat 
or  sing,  or  leave  unsung.  Reason  is  man's  breath  ;  it 
is  his  soul  ;   his  heart.     He  must  possess  it  or  die. 


DAVID    SWING,.  65 

Flowers  in  the  Name  of  a  New  Greatness. 

This  week  flowers  will  be  flung  down  not  only  in 
memory  of  the  dead  but  in  the  name  of  a  new  greatness. 
Memory  and  Hope  will  go  hand  in  hand  to  these  abodes 
of 'silence.  Tears  and  gladness  will  mingle — tears  be- 
cause the  soldier  sleeps,  gladness  because  a  new  moral 
greatness  lives.  When  recently  a  woman's  convention 
was  held  in  our  East  the  South  was  there  in  a  new 
mental  enthusiasm  and  mental  beauty.  The  intellectual 
power  of  old  and  new  England  is  spreading  Southward 
and  the  land  once  adorned  only  with  orange  blossoms 
and  fair  skies  and  beautiful  faces  is  to  receive  from  this 
dav  onward  the  blessed  decorations  of  the  intellect  and 
the  soul. 

On  the  Quick  March. 

The  men  who  are  occupying  Presbyterian  pulpits  and 
who  are  holding  the  newer  interpretation  of  old  terms 
may  well  feel  that  their  great  body  of  preachers  is  mov- 
ing with  quick  step  when  one  thinks  of  the  usual  gait  of 
new  ideas.  No  school  of  thinkers  ever  moved  forward 
more  rapidly  than  the  Presbyterian  Church  has  moved 
in  thirty  years.  It  has  left  behind  a  wonderful  amount 
of  false  teaching.  If  that  church  now  taught  its  old 
dogma  of  eternal  pain  for  all  save  the  few  elect,  or  if  it 
taught  that  negro  bondage  were  divine  those  dissenting 
ought  to  be  impatient  because  such  teachings  are  not 
only  false,  but  thc}^  are  immoral,  and  should  not  be 
suffered  to  poison  the  world's  air,  but  the  new  views 
about  the  Bible  and  as  to  the  nature  of  inspiration  are 
not  inwoven  with  the  idea  of  perdition  for  infants  and 
bondage  for  the  negro.  The  orthodox  idea  of  creation 
and  of  Noah's  ark  is  perhaps  false,  but  it  is  not  disgrace- 
ful.    To  overthrow  that  old  idea  the  preachers  need  not 


66  ECHOES 

run.  The  new  thought  maj^  advance  leisurely.  There 
is  no  harm  in  the  idea  that  it  once  rained  forty  days  and 
forty  nights,  and  that  the  mountains  were  covered  by  the 
great  rise  of  the  streams. 

What  is  "Breadth?" 

In  our  day,  whoever  speaks  of  "breadth"  and  "new 
truth"  as  related  to  the  church  ought  to  define  his  terms. 
The  "breadth"  that  must  be  patient  is  not  that  wide  hu- 
manity that  loves  and  helps  all  the  race  and  that  rejoices 
in  all  that  high  moralitj^  that  makes  a  noble  self  and  a 
noble  society.  An  atheist  may  possess  this  "breadth," 
and  may  thus  possess  a  jewel  for  mind  and  heart.  The 
Christian  breadth  is  a  quality  of  that  mind  which  is 
toiling  inside  of  the  terms  "Jesus"  and  "God."  It  is 
such  a  widening  of  thought  as  asks  man  only  to  imitate 
the  man  of  Nazareth  and  be  a  worshiper  of  God.  The 
Iviberalists  who  convened  in  this  city  recently  did  not 
make  religion  an  essential  part  of  their  doctrine  or  their 
sentiment.  Their  "breadth"  is  that  of  the  up-right  life 
— an  end  great  beyond  estimate.  The  Christian 
"breadth"  differs  from  that  of  the  L,iberalists  only  in 
asking  the  heart  to  be  a  follower  of  Jesus  and  a  worship- 
er of  the  Infinite.  Happj'  nation  should  both  these  forms 
of  "breadth"  traverse  all  the  rivers,  and  lakes,  and  fields 
and  leave  no  home  untouched  bj'  one  of  these  two  gospels 
of  moral  beauty!  Happy  the  soul  that,  unable  to  care 
for  an  altar  of  worship,  shall  deeply  love  and  perfectly 
obey  the  sublime  ethics  of  the  universe! 

Times  Have  Changed  Since  the  Year  1208. 

Many  of  the  most  thoughtless  and  fiery  of  the  Protes- 
tants do  not  seem  to  know  that  "times  change  and  that 
all  in  them  is  changed."     They  repeat   the  blood}^  words 


DAVID    SWING.  67 

"Waldenses"  and  "Albigenses"  as  though  the  Catholics 
had  assailed  those  sects  last  spring  or  last  summer. 
That  persecution  took  place  about  1208,  almost  seven 
hundred  years  ago.  It  ought  to  be  confessed  that  the 
Roman  Church  has  made  some  moral  progress  since 
that  date.  That  church  was  then  j  ust  emerging  from 
the  dark  ages;  and  if  its  monks  and  priests  had  helped 
create  that  long  night  they  must  have  the  credit  of  help- 
ing dispel  afterward  the  thick  mass  of  darkness.  The 
great  Dante  and  his  companions  came  300  years  before 
Martin  Luther.  Chaucer,  who  laid  the  foundations  of 
the  English  literature,  was  a  Catholic.  So  Petrarch  was 
laying  the  stones  of  a  new  Italy  before  Protestantism  was 
born. 

I/Uther  a  Fragment. 

As  the  expansion  of  classic  thought  and  the  growth  of 
university  life  made  Luther  and  Melanchthon,  so  these 
influences  brought  into  being  and  into  action  a  wonderful 
group  of  new-school  Catholics.  The  new  learning  that 
ended  the  dark  ages  and  laid  the  basis  of  Protestantism 
went  far  and  wide  and  called  into  life  and  stored  away  in 
history  such  giants  as  Bossuet,  Ma.ssillon,  Bourdalone, 
Fenelon  and  Mme.  Guion.  All  these  eminent  literary 
names  were  crowned  by  the  same  hands  as  those  that 
crowned  Luther  and  Calvin.  These  two  ran  out  of  the 
church  to  speak  and  act ;  Bossuet  and  Fenelon  remained 
in.side  the  old  temple.  Bossuet  and  Massillon  declaimed 
in  the  style  of  Demosthenes,  Fenelon  wrote  in  the  style 
of  the  Odyssey,  of  Homer.  The  middle  ages  were  far 
away.  The  scenery  around  St.  Augustine  was  faded 
from  sight.  In  the  Roman  Church  and  out  of  it  the  land- 
scape was  all  new.  Cardinal  Ximenes,  of  Spain,  came 
near  being  a  forerunner  of  Luther,  thus  showing  us  that 


68  ECHOES 

lyUther  was  a  fragment  thrown  off  by  a  revolving  wheel. 
There  has  been  little  violence  in  Christianity  since  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Bloody  spots  may  be 
found  indeed,  but  after  the  great  French  group  of  preach- 
ers had  passed  by,  Romanism  never  returned  to  the  rack 
and  the  stake.  Pascal  had  helped  to  destroy  the  Jesuits. 
The  Inquisition  had  been  abolished.  Even  Louis  XIX. ^ 
would  not  restore  such  a  court  of  horrors.  France  cre- 
ated a  new  local  Romanism,  and  the  Catholic  Church  at 
large  never  lost  the  mental  and  moral  impulse  given  it  by 
the  scholars  and  clergy  of  France.  So  rationalized  had 
France  become  that  it  brought  science  to  our  age  and  re- 
inspired  the  whole  literature  of  our  race. 

True  Greatness  Comes  Slowly. 

A  new  manhood  and  a  new  womanhood  can  come  but 
slowl}',  because  the  soul  in  its  long  sleep  has  had  a  moun- 
tain heaped  upon  its  bosom.  It  cannot  waken  quickly 
and  spring  up  like  a  lark  from  the  wet  grass.  It  is  like 
Enceladus,  who  lay  with  ISIount  ^tna  on  his  heart.  He 
must  dissolve  the  great  mountain  slowly  and  scatter  its 
ashes  afar  over  Sicily  and  the  sea.  Thus  all  the  old  hu- 
manity lies  under  the  awful  mass  of  antiquit}-.  The 
earth  must  tremble  for  long  days  before  the  imprisoned 
soul  can  go  free.  The  new  principles  and  the  new  priv- 
ileges are  slowly  creating  a  greater  civilization. 

The  True  Source  of  a  "New  :Era." 

When  man  speaks  of  a  new  era  he  must  use  the  words 
"make"  and  "create."  A  new  era  does  not  grow  like 
a  tree  nor  rise  like  a  tide.  Man  can  watch  a  tree  from 
year  to  3'ear,  or  he  can  sit  down  and  mark  the  rising  tide, 
but  a  new  era  he  must  create.  He  must  watch  only  so 
far  as  he  works.     This  strange  tide  rolls  in  only  at  man's 


DAVID   SWING.  69 

bidding.  As  a  song  will  not  sing  itself,  as  a  statue  will 
not  hew  itself  out  of  marble,  so  a  new  age  will  not  come 
of  its  own  will  out  of  the  places  where  our  soldiers  fell. 
This  high  tide  will  roll  in  from  the  human  hearts  that  are 
here  in  life. 

Self-Denial. 

For  many  centuries  the  Christian  estimate  of  man's 
life  was  inadequate.  Solemnity  was  never  a  full  justifi- 
cation of  the  human  family.  Solemnity  is  neither  a 
virtue  nor  a  vice.  One  cannot  live  for  it.  Weeping 
cannot  possibly  be  a  human  goal.  God  would  not  create 
a  world  that  it  might  weep.  Nor  is  self-denial  an  ex- 
planation of  rational  life  on  this  globe.  We  admire  the 
self-denial  of  a  poor  mother  who  toils  hard  and  eats  and 
sleeps  little  that  her  children  may  tlie  better  live,  but  we 
all  regret  that  that  poor  mother  could  not  have  enjo3'ed 
ten    times   as  much    sunshine   as   fell   upon   her  heart. 

Christ  was  the  man  of  sorrows,  but  not  because  .self- 
denial  is  the  reason  of  being.  Times  may  become  so 
dark  and  oppressive  that  the  salvation  of  the  many  can 
come  only  through  the  sufferings  of  the  few,  but  the 
universe  was  not  made  for  the  general  display  of  dark 
and  oppressive  times.  Self-denial  is  not,  therefore,  the 
ultimate  ideal  of  man.  Self-denial  assumes  the  misfor- 
tunes of  other  people,  but  the  other  people  must  finally 
ri.se  above  those  misfortunes,  and  thus  end  the  empire  of 
self-abnegation.  Self-denial  must  follow  us  through  in- 
fancy, but  what  is  to  be  with  us  and  stay  with  us  after 
we  have  become  men?  Nothing,  therefore,  will  explain 
the  human  race  except  the  many-sided  greatness  and 
happincs  of  each  individual.  The  former  Christian 
times  all  came  .short  of  finding  adequate  aims  of  society. 
The  three  years  of  Jesus  were  not  a  perfect  picture  of 


70  ECHOES 

human  life.  They  were  a  sublime  picture  of  man,  as 
caught  in  a  storm  and  as  saving  ship  and  crew,  but  in  the 
uncounted  j-ears  of  that  Son  of  God  there  is  no  crown  of 
thorns.  He  wept  for  one  night  in  a  gloomy  garden,  but 
in  the  matchless  sweep  of  his  existence  there  are  no 
tears.  Thus  we  preceive  that  the  existence  of  man  is  to 
be  explained  only  by  the  greatness  and  completeness  of 
his  ideals.  It  is  not  enough  for  a  man  if  he  is  a  good 
judge  of  pictures,  for  it  maj^  be  that  he  drinks  twenty' 
glasses  of  beer  a  day  and  pa3-s  the  family  servant  girl  only 
$2  a  week.  The  human  ideals  must  grow  more  numerous 
and  more  adequate,  that  they  may  make  a  complete 
manhood  and  womanhood. 

"  Universalism  Giving  Place  to  Christian." 
To  this  societ}^  titne  has  brought  a  great  change  of 
scener}'.  Little  remains  now  of  that  eternal  fire  and 
torment  that  helped  make  Universalism  so  logical  and 
welcome  in  its  early  years.  The  old  orthodox  churches 
have  bartered  away  their  fierj-  perdition  for  the  doctrine 
of  such  a  fair  form  of  punishment  as  may  harmonize 
most  with  the  character  of  the  infinite  God.  It  is  not 
probable  that  orthodoxy  claims  that  any  punishment 
will  be  eternal.  All  wicked  souls  may  at  last  emerge 
from  the  cloud,  and  take  their  place  in  the  realm  of 
light.  Eternity  has  of  late  j^ears  become  so  long  and 
so  unknown  that  not  mau}^  Christians  remain  who  feel 
willing  to  make  a  declaration  about  a  punishment  that 
will  go  on  forever.  Nearly  all  Episcopalians  and 
Pre.sbj-terians,  in  thinking  of  future  punishment,  have  in 
mind  only  a  vast  sweep  of  years.  They  do  not  insist 
upon  that  eternal  burning  that  was  so  welcome  a  thought 
in  the  times  of  our  fathers.  The  word  Uuiversalist  has 
thus  lost   its  import,  the   awful   hell  against   which  it 


DAVID   SWING.  71 

raised  its  protest  having  passed  away,  and  the  love  and 
equity  of  God  having  come.  All  things  are  ready  now 
for  the  word  Universalism  to  give  place  to  the  word 
Christian.  It  has  been  in  favor  of  Universalism  that 
it  has  not  formally  declared  Christ  to  be  only  human. 
It  has  permitted  its  pulpit  and  people  to  believe  in  some 
divine  mediation  ;  to  believe  in  an  incarnate  love  that 
made  hell  impossible  in  a  God-formed  universe.  Of  the 
unorthodox  churches  it  has  been  the  most  simple  and 
the  most  attractive  in  theory,  but  as  to  numerical  power 
it  has  suffered  by  the  fact  that  Unitarianism  preceded  it 
in  time,  and  caught  in  its  gospel  net  a  vast  multitude 
that  would  have  found  a  spiritual  home  in  the  latter 
creed.  It  was  a  beautiful  Ruth,  but  in  a  field  where 
others  had  gleaned. 

On  Both  Banks  of  the  Ohio. 

Our  soldiers'  graves  all  lie  on  a  dividing  line  between 
an  old  and  a  new  era.  That  line  which  .so  long  ran  be- 
tween the  North  and  the  South,  and  that  made  the  flowers 
of  one  bank  of  the  Ohio  grow  for  imperfect  freemen,  and 
those  of  the  other  bank  grow  for  absolute  slaves,  has 
been  blotted  out.  It  was  a  line  drawn  by  man's  early 
folly,  and  by  man's  later  tears  it  was  erased.  The  monu- 
ment reared  in  memory  of  that  old  line  is  the  tombs  of 
our  soldiers.  At  last,  on  both  banks  of  the  Ohio,  the 
flowers  are  plucked  by  hands  that  wear  no  chain.  Thus 
at  these  tombs  begins  a  new  era.  All  things  are  touched 
with   a  new  light;  all  hearts  beat  with  a  new  inspiration, 

I^et  Us  be  Kind  to  Young  Ideas- 

Our  world  is  founded  upon  the  cumulative  plan.  All 
good  things  keep  adding  interest  to  principal  and  soon 
a  handful  of  gold  becomes  a  fortune.     In  moral  things 


72  ECHOES 

this  is  more  true  than  in  physical  things.  Wemusi 
stand  by  reforms  in  their  early  and  weak  days,  because 
thus  must  begin  the  new  ideas  that  are  to  overturn  a 
despotism  or  regenerate  a  republic.  It  used  to  be 
taught  us  that  the  storks  were  so  kind  as  to  carry  their 
young  on  their  backs.  The  mother  storks  did  this  for  a 
day  because  on  the  njorrow  the  young  would  fly.  Thus 
man  must  be  kind  to  all  young  ideas.  He  must  carry 
food  to  them  and  shelter  them  against  the  storm.  To- 
morrow those  ideas  will  rise  in  their  strength  and  fly 
with  their  own  wings.  If  you  will  refer  back  a  half  cen- 
tury you  will  then  see  how  ideas  have  moved  from  mere 
existence  up  to  active  life.  You  will  see  the  first  efibrt 
of  a  woman  to  say  something  in  public.  You  will  see 
education  passing  from  the  few  to  the  many.  You  will  see 
a  f^w  tears  falling  for  the  slave.  One  heart  in  a  thousand 
is  touched  with  pity.  You  will  see  a  hint  somewhere 
about  humanity  to  dumb  animals.  You  will  see  some 
gentle  protest  against  the  cruel  rod  of  the  school- 
master. 

"All  Days  Cannot  be  Fair." 

We  all  long  to  be  perfectly  happy,  but  as  a  Nation  we 
must  accept  of  a  part  of  the  sorrows-  of  the  human  race, 
and  along  with  England  and  the  Netherlands  and  France, 
go  down  at  times  into  the  valley  of  humiliation.  Not  all 
paths  can  be  flowery,  not  all  days  fair.  The  distresses  of 
to-day  are  light  compared  with  the  aw^ful  bloodshed  of 
the  bygone  years.  The  soldiers  who  died  for  this  Nation 
will  find  their  deeds  and  their  graves  all  justified  again 
in  the  near  future.  We  need  not  lay  our  flowers  upon 
the  failures  of  this  little  season  ;  but  rather  upon  the  few 
great  past  years,  and  upon  the  noble  future  that  will 
surely  come.     Gold  may  go  away  from  us ;  trade  may 


DAVID    SWING.  73 

fluctuate  and  almost  fail  ;  ships  may  not  or  may  carry 
foreign  flags  ;  hungry  men  may  march  the  streets  in  the 
name  of  some  public  injustice  or  of  their  own  infinite 
folly,  and  yet  under  this  distress  our  Nation  may  lie  in  a 
greatness  such  as  mankind  never  saw.  Even  from  all 
the  painful  facts  that  surround  us,  we  must  all  emerge, 
carrying  in  our  hands  blossoms  for  the  soldiers'  graves. 
The  blood  of  the  Christian  martyrs  did  not  insure  the 
Church  against  mistakes.  After  all  the  noble  disciples 
and  apostles  around  Jesus  had  died  for  the  simple  gospel 
of  their  Master,  the  Church  went  into  a  long  course  of 
foll}^  and  crime,  but  yet  long  afterward  the  martyrs' 
blood  became  the  rich  soil  of  new  flowers.  Those  Chris- 
tian martyrs  died  to  establish  principles,  and  as  the  sun 
comes  back  after  storms, so  after  each  crime  and  folly  of  the 
Church  back  came  tombs  of  the  apostles  and  the  memory 
of  Christ.  Thus  the  heroic  lives  of  our  soldiers  did  not 
make  future  foll}^  impossible,  but  they  made  the  Nation 
so  thoughtful  and  great  that  it  cannot  easily  sink  under 
the  misfortunes  of  a  few  years.  Under  the  vice,  crime 
and  incapacity  that  now  hold  swaj^  in  the  cities  and  the 
Nation,  there  is  lying  a  sublime  example  of  patriotism 
which  asks  for  lilies  from  full  hands.  Patriotism  in  the 
tomb  has  often  fought  against  a  living  vice  and  ignor- 
ance. When  the  present  loses  all  great  speech,  the  dead 
often  become  eloquent.  v 

I/et  Us  Be  Patient. 

We  must  not  be  depressed  to  despair  over  the  short- 
comings of  these  passing  years.  The  spots  on  the  sun  are 
thought  to  be  caused  by  some  vast  volume  of  substance 
that  has  fallen  into  it,  and  has  not  yet  become  a  part  of  its 
fire.  Slowly  the  sun  conquers  the  dark  mass  and  com- 
pels the  black  spot   of  yesterday  to  go  out  in   sunbeams 


74  ECHOES 

to-morrow.  Thus  in  our  Nation  there  is  an  infinite 
power  that  may  at  last  make  the  black  spots  of  this 
hour  become  a  part  of  some  new  day  of  outpoured  light. 
All  hearts  that  desire  to  create  and  enjoy  a  great  Nation, 
possess  in  the  United  States  a  stored-up  force  that  may  be 
led  hither  and  thither  for  man's  happiness,  as  the  Nile  is 
led  to  ten  thousand  waiting  gardens  and  waiting  fields. 
All  is  ready  for  the  touch  of  new  will  power  and  new 
genius. 

Music  the  Sister  of  Religion. 

Music  is  almost  matchless  in  its  power  to  awaken  the 
slumbering  feelings  of  the  soul.  It  has  no  definite 
language.  The  same  piece  will  carry  new  life  to  one  and 
will  seem  like  a  dance  of  happy  spirits,  and  to  another 
will  come  as  in  the  pensiveness  of  a  dying  hour,  and  will 
cause  to  come  before  us  the  faces  of  the  loved  dead,  and 
will  make  one  wish  to  be  with  the  dead  beyond  the  tomb 
in  the  grass.  Music  is  an  urn  into  which  each  heart 
empties  its  own  self.  But  it  is  not  alone  in  this.  Reli- 
gion is  its  sister,  only  more  gifted  in  mind  and  soul. 
Hence,  into  the  words  of  St.  John,  into  his  graceful  vases 
of  language  the  heart  of  the  humblest  man  may  go  and 
pour  its  own  hopes  and  sorrows,  and  while  yet  upon  the 
shores  of  earth  in  body  may  be  carried  away  to  paradise. 
The  Apocalj'pse  is  only  the  solemn  music  of  futurity 
sounding  for  us  all.  The  words  are  indistinct,  but  we 
remember  now  that  the  most  impressive  music  is  written 
wholly  without  words. 

Neglected  Children. 
There  is  something  very  touching  in  the  condition  of 
those  children  and  youths  whose  parents  have  no  educa- 
tion nor  taste,  and  who,  therefore,  cannot  open  to  there 
children  any  gates  except  those  of  hard  labor  and  rude 


DAVID   SWING.  75 

usage  and  vice.  There  are  millions  of  these  in  the 
Christian  nations  for  whom  there  is  no  church,  nor 
school,  nor  book,  nor  hand  of  elevated  friendship.  In 
all  their  early  years,  there  is  no  one  to  point  them  to  the 
beauties  of  nature  and  art,  no  one  to  teach  them  to  read 
the  pages  of  knowledge,  no  one  to  teach  them  a  song  of 
pathos  and  kindness,  or  any  of  the  holier  hymns  of 
religion. 

Fallible    Workmen. 

God  would  rather  an  imperfect  man  should  teach  di- 
vine lessons  than  that  a  few  men  should  be  made  perfect 
by  miracle.  The  Bible  therefore  takes  its  place  in  the 
arena  of  fallible  workmen  and  bears  some  traces  of 
having  been  made  by  beings  who  needed  a  part  of  the 
forgiveness  and  penitence  which  they  have  taught  to 
mankind. 

The  Times   "Out  of  joint." 

Our  intellectual  advance  is  far  more  rapid  than  our 
moral  advance,  and  we  have  thus  found  more  evils  than 
we  can  abate,  can  perceive  more  sorrows  than  we  are 
willing  to  cure.  The  drvelopment  of  the  modern  man 
and  woman  is  intellectual  more  than  spiritual,  and  this 
throws  our  age  out  of  balance,  or,  as  some  express  it,  we 
have  "times  out  of  joint."  When  a  carpenter  finds  his 
timber  too  .short  for  the  intended  reach,  or  too  narrow, 
when  a  harmony  of  timbers  or  beams  or  })oards  is  impos- 
sible, all  fail  because  being  "out  of  joint."  Thus  our 
era  is  crippled  by  this  inequality  of  material.  The  virtue 
of  the  age  is  too  small  for  the  brains  of  the  age,  and,  as  a 
result,  we  are  all  gathering  up  facts  and  forces  more 
rapidly  than  we  are  gathering  happiness  or  goodness, 
and  might  easily  become,  as  was  rhetorically  said  of 
Bacon,  "greatest,  wisest  and  meanest "  of  ages. 


76  ECHOES 

The  Ratchet  on  the  Wheel  of  Progress. 

When  our  continent  passes  before  us  m  review,  our 
sufferings  to-day  seem  onlj^  a  part  of  the  long  human 
calamity.  If  civilization  is  the  gradual  mitigation  of  a 
hard  lot  then  we  are  not  standing  still.  We  are  ad  vane 
ing,  but  the  mind  is  such  an  infinite  thing  that  it  is  capa- 
ble of  an  infinite  foil)'.  If  we  should  kill  one  folly  a 
year  it  would  take  us  a  century  to  become  eminently 
respectable.  The  mind  is  a  beautiful  thing  at  last  when 
finished,  but  it  takes  a  Nation  a  long  time  to  reach  that 
finish.  A  small  minority  of  persons  can  soon  reach  a 
terrestrial  perfection,  but  he  must  possess  great  patience 
who  would  wait  for  the  majority  to  catch  up.  Six 
hundred  Emersons  or  Whittiers  would  not  steal  a  railway 
train  that  they  might  go  and  beg  the  Nation  to  be  hon- 
orable; but  the  population  of  the  countr\'  is  70,000,000, 
and  at  least  one-half  of  these  are  below  the  Emerson  stand- 
ard of  light  and  conscience.  But  the  enlightened  crowd 
grows  larger  constantly,  just  as  art  tends  toward  more 
and  more  of  beauty.  As  society  advances,  it  treasures 
up  its  progress  in  the  storehouse  of  law.  In  the  world 
of  machinery  there  is  a  part  known  by  the  name  of  a 
ratchet.  When  a  vast  load  is  being  lifted,  or  a  car  full  of 
human  life  is  being  dragged  up  a  steep  incline,  the  sound 
of  this  iron  arm  is  as  delightful  as  music.  It  will  hold 
the  car  from  falling  or  running  back.  When  a  hundred 
feet  have  been  gained,  the  powerful  arm  holds  the  gain 
and  lets  the  car  pass  on  to  a  hundred  and  one,  and  two, 
and  ten.  Thus  law  is  the  ratchet  upon  the  wheel  of  our 
progress.  When  we  have  risen  to  a  good  height  this 
arm  falls  into  a  notch  to  hold  us  from  falling  back  into 
the  abyss.  When  man  has  risen  this  law  holds  his 
gain. 


DAVID   SWING.  77 

A  Sad  Divorce. 

The  sad  divorce  between  thinking  and  doing.  Thou- 
sands are  sitting  in  the  schools,  other  thousands  are 
hidden  away  in  silent  rooms  that  they  may  acquire  the 
art  of  uttering  well  good  thoughts  in  prose  or  poetry, 
in  oration  or  essay.  Never  before  was  our  earth  so  cov- 
ered over  with  the  rich  drapery  of  learning  and  wisdom 
and  romance.  Even  the  sleeping  literature  of  the  old 
East  has  been  translated  into  our  language,  and  thus 
Asia  and  China  and  Persia  speak  over  again  the  words 
that  fell  like  manna  many  centuries  ago.  This  June 
month  cannot  weave  for  the  prairies  a  vestment  of  grass 
and  flowers  richer  than  that  robe  of  high  thought  which 
the  past  has  woven  for  the  nineteenth  century. 
"  I/and-Owner  "  and  "Brain-Owner." 

Along  comes  a  lad  with  more  brains  than  is  enjoyed  by 
his  brother,  and  while  one  Beethoven  proudly  signs  him- 
self "Land-owner,"  to  keep  the  world  from  confioundng 
him  with  his  poor  musical  brother,  the  brother  signs 
himself  "Brain-owner,"  and  the  balance  is  fully  struck. 
Thus  out  of  the  strange  laboratory  of  nature  issue  two 
tribes,  "land-owners"  and  "brain-owners,"  and  then  a 
third  tribe  that  are  neither.  Very  busy  is  this  earth,  all 
the  while  dividing  its  children  up  into  parcels,  saying  to 
some  of  them  "Take  beauty;"  to  others,  "Take  genius;" 
to  others,  "Take  money  and  go  your  way;"  and  by 
divers  paths,  they  all  go  away  to  the  far  country.  In  one 
of  his  poems,  Dr.  Holmes  passes  beyond  the  visible  influ- 
ence of  earth  and  finds  a  fatal  hand  reaching  down  out  of 
the  unseen  and  shaping  destiny. 

From  the  same  father's  side, 
From  the  same  mother's  knee. 

One  journeys  toward  a  frozen  tide, 
One  to  a  peaceful  sea. 


78  ECHOES 

The  Worship  of  Humanity. 
The  days  of  the  French  revolution  and  the  half  century 
following  showed  that  the  worship  of  humanity  could 
not  lift  the  spirit  upward  as  it  was  lifted  by  the  harp  of 
Isaiah,  or  by  the  prayers  of  Epictetus,  or  by  the  holy 
cross  of  our  Lord.  The  songs  of  the  Red  Republicans 
were  a  poor  spiritual  food  compared  with  Zion's  songs, 
which  broke  the  hearts  of  Judah's  daughters  in  a  strange 
land,  or  which  echoed  in  the  "misereres"  and  "glorias" 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  worship  of  humanity 
became  a  worship  of  food,  and  drink,  and  pleasure;  and 
handed  over  to  a  merciful  oblivion  those  who  turned 
away  from  Heaven's  God  to  fling  their  offerings  upon 
man's  altar.  The  votaries  of  this  new  morals  never 
soared  up  to  eloquence.  They  failed  to  become  Pauls, 
ready  to  die  for  virtue,  they  failed  to  imitate  Savonarola 
as  missionaries  against  vice,  they  found  no  French  elo- 
quence on  their  lips  such  as  had  made  kings  penitent  in 
the  da^'s  of  Bossuet  and  Massillon.  Their  religion  lan- 
guished as  a  piety  and  expanded  only  as  a  despair. 
Coming  to  a  lofty  intellect  like  August  Comte,  it  only 
turned  into  a  philosophic  obscurity  and  sadness  that 
became  readilj^  a  poetry  but  never  a  salvation. 

Jesus  Christ  Greater  Than  All  Sects. 
Above  and  beyond,  and  also  through  the  churches, 
the  spirit  of  Christ  flies,  like  the  angel  that  went  to  and 
fro  over  the  heavens  in  St.  John's  vision.  There  is  a 
spirit  of  brotherhood  in  Christ  that  even  w^hile  the 
Church  was  holding  slaves  and  was  glorying  in  bondage, 
was  upon  the  outside  of  the  Church  pleading  for  equality 
and  liberty.  When  it  could  not  touch  the  pulpit  it 
touched  a  Wilberforce.  When  the  communion  table 
would  not  confess  it,  it  spoke  in  music  through  Sumner 


DAVID    SWING.  79 

and  Stuart  Mill.  Jesus  Christ  has  always  been  larger 
than  any  existing  sect,  or  all  sects,  and  as  the  sun  shines 
upon  the  earth,  and  besides  pours  his  flood  around  it  and 
beyond  it,  touching  other  planets  and  emptying  oceans 
of  light  into  the  great  formless  void,  so  Christ  has 
blessed  the  Church  so  far  as  it  would  receive  His  gifts, 
and  then  has  poured  His  love  around  it  and  beyond  it, 
where  the  statesmen  have  sat  in  council  without  any 
creed  or  any  prayer. 

I>et  Our  Politics  be  Intelligible. 

It  is  a  common  law  of  rhetoric  that  no  great  speech,  no 
great  essay,  no  great  poem  needs  an  expert  interpreter. 
Its  meaning  comes  only  too  rapidly  to  the  heart.  The 
reader  or  hearer  has  not  time  to  keep  back  his  tears.  He 
is  smitten  in  an  instant.  He  cries  or  laughs  without  the 
help  of  a  trained  purse.  So  in  our  world  of  politics  we 
want  no  vagueness  in  our  pleadings,  no  Calvinistic  in- 
comprehensibility in  our  crusades.  One  would  as  soon 
die  for  the  philosophy  of  Hegel  as  for  that  of  Henry 
George.  If  a  hero  must  die  for  a  philosophy  it  ought  to 
be  permitted  him  to  understand  it  before  dying.  This 
permission  would  indeed  subject  nearly  all  martyrdom 
to  a  great  postponement.  It  would  be  almost  a  gift  of 
eternal  youth. 

Success  to  the  Civic  Federation. 

May  great  success  come  to  the  Civic  Federation,  which 
is  attempting  to  redeem  this  city  from  the  grasp  of  those 
men  in  office  and  out  of  office,  who,  being  Romanists, 
disgrace  Rome's  altar,  or,  being  Protestants,  disgrace  all 
humanity!  Nothing  is  so  beautiful  as  the  face  of  the 
Redeemer;  but  each  man  and  woman  who  leads  toward 
a  higher  life,  is  a  redeemer  of  our  race.  Christ  was  a 
fountain  of  redemption,  but  humanity  at  large  composes 


8o  ECHOES 

the  great  flood.  Each  noble  soul,  each  good  book,  each 
great  picture,  each  piece  of  high  music,  is  a  redeemer, 
and  when  the  soul,  young  or  mature,  has  once  started 
toward  its  salvation,  then  each  field,  each  forest,  becomes 
a  page  in  its  divine  book,  and  each  bird  song  a  revival 
hymn,  sweet  as  those  of  the  old  Methodists. 

We  All  Need  Special  Care. 

Bach  class  of  mankind  needs  its  own  peculiar  treat- 
ment. When  a  new  form  of  human  soul  comes 
along,  a  new  school-house,  new  politics,  a  new  religion, 
must  be  made  for  this  new  soul.  The  laws  of  Persia 
would  not  be  obeyed  by  Americans.  Our  upper  classes 
would  not  tend  a  Roman  theater.  Our  soldiers  would 
not  go  into  battle  as  the  Persians  went,  with  a  driver  and 
a  lash  behind  each  squad.  As  fast  as  new  men  come, 
their  surroundings  must  become  new,  just  as  Paul,  when 
a  child  saw  as  a  child  and  spoke  as  a  child,  but  passing 
into  manhood,  he  put  away  childish  things.  While  a 
child,  Paul  saw  the  sky  as  a  blue  arch  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  his  hand,  but  when  he  became  a  man  his  mind 
pushed  back  the  canopy  and  made  it  the  far-oif  encamp- 
ment of  God.  Thus,  as  a  class  of  men  or  a  whole  age 
moves  forward,  the  scenery  changes  as  around  a  flying 
train,  and  what  was  passes  away. 

Man  Born  to  Greatness  as  Well  as  Trouble. 
Must  we  see  the  path  of  eloquence  all  deserted  ;  the 
land  empty  of  great  men  ;  the  pulpit  weakened  ;  great 
politics  abandoned  ;  the  country  half  forgotten  that  our 
most  ambitious  hearts  may  keep  the  great  books  of  large 
property  ?  We,  indeed,  should  all  wish  our  troubles  to 
cease,  but  we  all  ought  to  wish  that  when  prosperity 
shall  come  back  it  will  bring  with  it  an  uprising  of  the 
heart.     The  infinite  wealth  of  this  Nation  must  struggle 


DAVID    SWING.  8l 

onward  toward  an  infinite  richness  of  its  humanity.  Out 
of  the  old  fact  of  human  troubles,  their  abundance  and 
bitterness,  came  the  word  Savior.  All  through  the  Old 
Testament  the  blessed  term  comes  and  goes.  It  passed 
over  the  two  classic  lands,  and  many  a  statue  of  marble 
or  gold  or  ivory  arose  to  the  memory  of  some  one  who 
had  come  between  man  and  a  misfortune.  But  these 
monuments  could  only  proclaim  a  happy  day  as  past ; 
they  could  not  make  new  happ}^  days  come.  They  were 
a  beautiful  memory,  but  not  an  ever-advancing  phil- 
osophy. At  the  base  of  each  monument  back  came  the 
heart's  griefs.  Out  of  these  incessant  tears  a  new  Savior 
was  at  last  born.  He  is  the  Savior  of  to-day  and  to- 
morrow ;  not  a  monument,  but  a  life.  Man  was  not  only 
born  to  trouble,  as  the  sparks  to  fly  upward,  but  he  was 
also  born  to  greatness  and  joy,  if  only  some  Savior  will 
beat  down  the  wild  thorns  and  let  the  lilies  live.  Joy 
loves  to  fly  upward  like  sparks  from  the  fire.  When  the 
moral  Savior  comes  troubles  pass  away  and  human  life 
grows  triumphant.  Through  him  the  troubles  of  wealth 
would  give  place  to  a  blessed  benevolence  ;  the  troubles 
of  the  State  would  be  modified  by  the  advent  of  honor  in 
all  the  humble  and  great  offices,  and  by  a  holier  brother- 
hood among  men  ;  the  troubles  of  the  drunkard  would 
pass  away  at  the  bidding  of  the  blameless  life  ;  the 
troubles  of  sin  would  disappear  in  a  full  forgiveness  and 
a  new  virtue  ;  the  troubles  of  poverty  would  almost  be 
destroyed  by  the  divine  simplicity  of  life,  and  even  the 
trouble  which  death  pours  into  the  heart  would  be  only  a 
light  cloud  which  the  love  of  God  would  dissolve.  Man 
is  born  to  trouble,  but  the  civilization  which  Jesus  offers 
will  command  society  to  be  born  to  ten  thousand  joys. 


82  •  ECHOES 

Btnilio  Castelar. 

Emilio  Castelar  is  the  Voltaire  and  the  Cavour  of 
Spain.  He  led  that  land  to  the  borders  of  a  republic, 
but  it  has  swung  part  way  back.  In  his  chapter  written 
on  an  evening  on  the  Grand  Canal  in  Venice,  he  gives 
his  conversation  with  a  priest.  "Very  well,"  said  the 
priest,  "our  age,  then,  does  not  believe  in  miracles?" 
"  It  is  right,"  replied  Castelar;  "its  acquaintance  with 
nature's  laws  has  convinced  it  that  these  laws  cannot  for 
an  instant  be  interrupted.  We  may  enjoy  all  the  beauti- 
ful things  of  religion,  but  the  mind  must  look  through 
them  at  last  and  rest  upon  science  alone."  Such  was  the 
man  who  for  a  time  held  Spain  in  his  kind  hand. 

Toiling  in  Vain. 

It  is  no  pleasing  outlook  of  life  if,  after  one  has  given 
his  days  of  work  and  sorrow  to  doctrines,  these  doctrines 
are  all  to  perish,  to  be  put  aside  as  men  throw  away  old 
raiment.  Why  should  one  toil  and  fight  and  even  die  for 
the  pope,  or  for  the  conservation  of  slaver}^  or  for  the 
divine  right  of  kings,  if  just  after  us  are  to  come  gener- 
ations who  will  build  up  a  wide  freedom  without  slave  or 
pope  or  king  upon  the  ruins  of  one's  life  and  thought. 

^he  Unity  of  Thought  and  Morals. 

I  see  the  unity  of  thought  and  of  morals  running 
through  all  animated  nature.  There  is  no  difference  of 
quality,  but  only  of  more  and  less.  The  animal  who  is 
wholl}^  kept  down  in  nature  has  no  anxieties.  By  yield- 
ing, as  he  must  do,  to  it,  he  is  enlarged  and  reaches  his 
highest  point.  The  poor  grub  in  the  hole  of  a  tree,  by 
yielding  itself  to  nature,  goes  blameless  through  its  low 
part,  and  is  rewarded  at  la.st,  casts  its  filthy  hull,  expands 


DAVID   SWING.  ■  83 

into  a  beautiful  form  with  rainbow  wings,  and  makes  a 
part  of  the  summer  day.  The  Greeks  call  it  Psyche,  a 
manifest  emblem  of  the  soul. 

Goodness  and  Perfection. 

In  order  to  make  these  three-score  years  yield  the 
most  of  positive  pleasure  and  of  peace,  at  least  when 
positiv^e  happiness  is  wanting,  the  mind  must  realize  the 
full  meaning  of  the  word  "good,"  as  distinguished  from 
the  word  "perfect."  Here  you  are  looking  for  all 
kinds  of  perfection,  when  you  ought  to  be  thankful  for 
anything  that  is  even  down  in  the  comparative  degree  of 
goodness. 

Hebrew  and  Christian  Pictures  of  God. 

Among  the  ideas  of  earth  that  are  most  restless  and 

most    progressive  and  most    infinite,  let   us  confess  the 

idea  of  God.     As  the  first  geographers  made  our  earth 

so  contemptible  that  a  man  or  a  turtle  was  an  adequate 

foundation  for  its  mass,  so  the  first  theologians  saw  God 

as  only  a  hero,  or   a  sleeping,  dreaming   Oriental  king. 

Compared   with    the   nations   around,    the   God   of   the 

Hebrews  marked  a  wonderful  progress,  and  looking  into 

the   darkness  around  him,  David  truly  sang  his   song, 

"  For  our  Lord  is  a  great  God  ,"     but  even  his  picture 

•^as  far   below  the   reality,  and  the   world   hastened   to 

fiove  on.     Christianity  came,  and  gave  the  idea  of  the 

Heavenly  Father   a  new  and   wonderful   impulse.     The 

actions   once    attributed   to    Deity   were   repudiated   by 

Christ,  and  out  of  that  New  Testament  era  there  came 

a  new  Creator,  a  new  Father.     An  idea  marched  rapidly 

forward. 

Crumbling  Thrones. 

All  this  crumbling  of  thrones  which  we  behold  in  our 
day,  this  sinking  of  crowned  heads  to  the  level  of  the 


S4  ECHOES 

multitude,  has  not  come  without  a  cause.  The  throues 
of  earth  were  founded  upon  the  deepest  principles  of 
selfishness.  Millions  of  baj^onets  have  stood  in  frightful 
lines  for  the  king's  support.  The  history  of  the  last 
hundred  years  has  been  the  history  of  attempts  to  keep 
up  the  same  old  despotisms.  But  the  equality  of  man- 
kind has,  at  the  close  of  each  battle  in  which  kings  have 
triumphed,  come  back  to  begin  its  secret  abrasion  of  the 
flinty  rock.  No  sooner  have  the  kings  exacted  peace 
than  the  voice  of  human  brotherhood  has  begun,  like 
Abel's  blood,  to  cr}-  up  from  the  ground;  and  the  kings, 
flushed  on  yesterday  with  victor}-,  must  begin  at  once  to 
invent  new  arms  and  draft  new  mercenaries  for  a  fiery 
conflict. 

A  Fine  ^ar  for  Heart-Pulses. 

Surely,  surely  the  only  true  knowledge  of  our  fellow- 
man  is  that  which  enables  us  to  feel  with  him — which 
gives  us  a  fine  ear  for  the  heart-pulses  that  are  beating 
under  the  mere  clothes  of  circumstance  and  opinion. 
Our  subtlest  analysis  of  schools  and  sects  must  miss  the 
essential  truth,  unless  it  be  lit  up  by  the  love  that  sees, 
in  all  forms  of  human  thought  and  work,  the  life  and 
death-struggles  of  seperate  human  beings. 

The  Rich,  the  Poor  and  the  Children. 

We  feel  free  to  affirm  that  no  one  influence  can  any- 
where be  pointed  out  that  will  equal  the  power  that 
Christ  has  brought  to  bear  upon  the  republican  princi- 
ciples  in  society.  The  whole  soul  of  His  religion  is 
broad.  It  is  man — man,  not  rich  or  poor,  not  crowned, 
not  chained,  but  man  who  figures  in  the  great  Christian 
drama  of  life  and  death.  In  the  religion  of  Jesus  the  rich 
are  humiliated  if  riches  be  their  idol;  in  the  same  religion 


DAVID   SWING.  85 

the  poor  are  exalted  if  they  are  in  the  paths  of  righteous- 
ness. Here  it  was  the  widow  with  two  mites  outranked 
the  Dives  of  purple  and  fine  linen.  Here  it  was  the  first 
began  to  be  last  and  the  last  first.  Those  whom  birth, 
or  riches,  or  force,  had  set  up  in  high  places,  began  to 
sit  uneasy  on  their  pedestals  of  vanity,  and  slowly  up 
rose  Magdalen  and  all  the  penitents  till  forehead  ofking 
and  forehead  of  subject  found  the  level  of  kindred  drops. 
In  this  transformation  scene  of  the  New  Testament, 
children  came  to  the  front,  and,  for  the  first  time  on 
man's  world,  were  made  the  equals  of  kings,  orators,  or 
philosophers.     Of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

Is  Not  All  Thinking  Perilous? 

Of  course,  there  is  a  line  where  liberalism  fades  away 
into  unbelief.  But  all  thinking  is  perilous.  The  search 
for  evidence  is  dangerous,  for  it  builds  up  a  love  of 
proof  which  at  last  religion  may  fail  to  gratify.  Liber- 
alism may  seek  for  the  unchanging  until  amid  the 
enigmas  of  the  world,  it  shall  cry  out :  "All  is  vanit}^, " 
and  confess  no  faith.  But  while  the  peril  of  the  liberal 
spirit  is  great,  the  peril  of  the  narrow  spirit  is  vastly 
greater.  For  each  soul  marred  or  ruined  by  too  much 
breadth,  one  can  point  to  myriads  rendered  frightful  by 
their  a.ssumption  that  the  little  ideas  in  their  hands  were 
the  eternal  wish  of  God. 

Action. 

Read  the  roll  of  earth's  great  from  the  present  back, 
and  it  is  not  made  up  of  only  those  wrote  and  spoke  with 
elegance  and  genius  and  logic,  but  every  alternate 
name  is  of  some  one  who  led  the  legions  in  the  field  of 
action.  Poet  must  divide  space  with  inventor,  orator 
must  find  room  for  discoverer,    dramatist   must   share 


86  ECHOES 

marble  with  the  philanthropist,  until  at  last  poetry  is 
equaled  by  love,  and  admiration  is  divided  between  the 
genius  and  the  hero. 

Vague,  But  Most  Valuable. 

Religion,  worship,  praj^er,  is  a  deep  feeling  rolling 
over  the  heart,  as  a  wave  upon  the  shore.  Hence,  amid 
the  indefinite  ideas  of  Ezekiel  and  St.  John,  the  intellect 
indeed  does  not  see  clearly,  but  the  soul  is  borne  along 
by  its  own  consciousness  of  the  grand  and  even  the 
thrilling  in  religion.  Mathematics  alone  speaks  exact 
words.  Poetry  and  prophecy  come  with  a  wonderful 
vagueness,  but  the  human  heart  flies  to  them  because  it 
is  not  information  it  seeks,  but  a  new  light  or  shadow  for 
the  heart.  No  one  may  declare  what  Ezekiel  saw  in  his 
vision  of  an  advancing  Providence  moving  upon  wheels 
within  wheels  and  with  wings  of  cherubim,  but  toward  the 
scene  the  human  spirit  turns  and  feels  that  somewhere  in 
the  great  cloud  of  mystery  is  the  being  of  God. 

The  Industrious  Millions. 

Our  flag  waves  over  millions  who  are  industrious,  and 
thus  they  find  the  paths  of  honor  and  of  happiness. 
Most  of  modern  crime  comes  from  the  intemperate  or  the 
idle  and  indolent.  Against  the  quick  and  utter  ruin  of 
the  masses  the  popularity  and  rewards  of  industry  are  a 
perpetual  barrier. 

Wanted !  a  Strong  Government. 

We  are  in  an  interregnum  when  there  is  no  govern- 
ment to  punish  crime  and  no  powerful  education  to  pre- 
vent the  growth  of  criminals.  Government,  quick  and 
unbending  cannot  be  ever  dispensed  with.  It  must  be  as 
perpetual   as   society.     Where   crime   is    committed    or 


DAVID   SWING.  87 

threatened,  there  government  must  reveal  itself.  Our 
Republic  is  a  state  whtre  power  has  ceased  to  flow  from 
kings,  and  has  not  yet  begun  to  flow  from  the  people. 

The  Heroes  of  the  Bible. 

The  heroes  of  the  Bible  make  up  such  a  group  of 
pearls  as  never  before  in  history  were  strung  upon  one 
string.  Christianity  is  the  only  queen  that  ever  wore 
such  a  collection  of  gems.  But  she  wears  them  right 
along,  and  has  thus  been  unapproachable  for  thousands 
of  years.  And  she  will  remain  matchless  in  the  quality 
of  soul  that  lay  beneath  her  thought.  It  does  not  seem 
possible  that  earth  can  ever  reproduce  a  St.  Paul  or  a  St. 
John.  And  now,  when  to  these  beings  you  have  added 
just  one  more  whom  I  need  not  so  much  as  name,  a 
being  who  emptied  an  ocean  of  love  and  hope  upon  the 
world,  and  who  has  transformed  the  earth,  making  it  roll 
out  of  darkness  into  light,  you  will  conclude  that  here 
in  the  Christian  records  mighty  souls  have  passed  in  a 
strange  vision  before  ns  Here  are  tremendous  founda- 
tions, broad,  deep,  vast.  And  as  though  man  might 
come  some  day  in  the  vanity  of  the  subsequent  centuries 
and  mock  at  the  impulse  or  character  of  these  men,  they 
all  died  heroic  deaths  that  the  feeble  critics  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  might  feel  their  own  littleness  when  they 
.should  behold  the  thrilling  ending  of  these  lives.  Paul 
was  put  to  death  in  Rome.  John  was  tortured  and  sent 
to  die  an  exile.  James  was  hurled  from  a  battlement  in 
Jerusalem  and  crushed  to  death.  Simon  Zelotes  was  put 
to  death  in  Persia,  where  also  Jude  was  tortured  to  the 
death.  Matthew  was  slain  by  a  mob  in  Abyssinia. 
Thomas  was  killed  in  Coroinandel.  Philip  was  hanged 
upon  a  pillar  in  Hierapolis.  Andrew  was  crucified  at 
Patraca,  and  James  the  I^ess  in  Asia.     As  for  the  one 


88  ECHOES 

Name  towering  above  all,  He  was  crucified  on  Mount 
Calvary  between  two  thieves.  Into  such  holy  hearts  did 
God  pour  the  truths,  the  hopes,  the  joys  and  sorrows  of 
our  religion. 

Greatness  of  Spirit. 

The  spirit  of  man  must  mean  the  great  drift  or  current 
of  his  life.  If  he  is  said  to  have  a  great  spirit,  it  must 
be  that  all  the  days  and  hours  of  his  life,  arising  in  the 
hidden  recesses  of  the  soul,  among  the  unseen  hills  of  its 
adamant  or  jasper,  at  once  set  forth  upon  a  long  journey 
toward  the  noon  of  love  and  light,  that  infinite  gulf, 
sweeter  than  Mexican  sea,  murmuring  in  hymn  and 
benediction  as  the  flow.  It  is  said  that  Fenelon  revealed 
a  lofty  spirit.  This  is  afiirmed  of  Chalmers.  The  world 
says  the  same  of  Joan  d'Arc.  It  thinks  the  same  of 
L'Ouverture.  Of  such  mighty  souls  the  pages  of  history 
hold  just  enough  to  help  us  in  the  study  of  this  word 
"spirit."  As  histor>'  marches  along  it  will  meet  with 
more  of  these  noble  children,  and  when  at  last  the  Son 
of  Man  shall  come  in  his  final  glory  He  will  find  all  the 
children  of  earth  standing  before  Him  happy  in  a  great- 
ness of  spirit. 

The  Dawn  of  Brotherhood. 

When  Chrisr  lived  His  sublime  life,  and  passed  by  the 
purple  robes  of  a  Pilate  and  a  Herod,  and  loved  such 
characters  as  John  and  Luke;  when  He  passed  by  those 
mighty  in  violence  and  gave  His  hand  to  those  beautiful 
in  soul,  the  world  began  to  become  a  brotherhood  of 
which  the  soul  was  to  be  the  only  essential  element,  the 
condition  of  full  membership. 


DAVID   SWING.  89 

Changes  in  the  Path  of  Progress. 

Any  one  looking  at  Christianity  will  perceive  that  it 
moves  forward  amid  two  sets  of  facts  ;  that  the  facts  of 
one  class  are  changeable  as  the  clouds  upon  the  sky  ; 
that  the  facts  of  the  other  class  are  permanent  as  the 
deep  blue  back  of  the  clouds.  It  is  known  to  all  the 
lovers  of  nature  that  the  clouds  never  repeat  their  forms 
in  the  West.  Never  twice  does  the  setting  sun  give  the 
admiring  world  the  same  picture.  Thus,  in  Christianity, 
no  two  eras  airange  alike  the  religious  details.  The 
revivals,  the  service,  the  sermons,  the  prayers,  the 
hymns,  the  music,  the  ceremonies,  change  like  the 
toilet  of  the  worshipers.  More  than  this,  doctrines 
change,  and  out  of  a  hundred  ideas  that  enter  an  age, 
only  a  tenth  will  come  forth  meaning  what  they  meant, 
or  retaining  the  love  they  enjoyed  when  they  passed  into 
the  gates  of  the  epoch.  Ideas  rush  into  a  centur/  much 
like  the  "  charge  of  the  six  hundred."  Beautiful  is 
their  equipment,  bright  their  armor,  nodding  and  white 
their  plumes  ;  but  after  the  thunder  ol  battle  has  passed 
by,  how  few  are  the  warrior  truths  that  remain  !  The 
field  is  covered  with  the  dead. 

Idleness  Fatal  to  a  State. 

Occupation  does  more  for  morals  and  happiness  than 
can  be  accomplished  by  laws  and  police,  and  if  our  gov- 
ernment cannot  execute  well  its  laws,  it  has  built  up  an 
industry  which  is  bringing  sobriety  and  happiness  to 
many.  If  liberty  and  idleness  had  come  together  to 
found  this  republic,  it  would  be  either  dead  now  or  would 
be  in  death's  final  struggle.  For  nothing  can  be  more 
rapidly  fatal  to  a  state  than  bad  officials  and  an  idle  pop- 
ulace. 


90  ECHOES 

The  Vastness  of  the  Universe. 

The  vastness  of  the  universe  renders  foolish  the  suppo- 
sition that  this  little  planet  is  the  only  inhabited  one;  and 
the  unity  of  laws  and  of  substances  asks  us  to  imagine 
the  beings  upon  other  spheres  to  be  moving  to  and  fro  in 
the  likeness  of  man,  speaking  a  language  and  busied  bj' 
the  useful  and  the  beautiful.  We  may  even  assume  that 
such  is  the  oneness  of  intelligent  life  that  if  these  inhabi- 
tants of  different  planets  were  to  meet  in  some  general 
home  in  immortality,  they  would  prove  to  be  of  one 
race, — a  human  race  having  different  minor  details  of 
histor\',  but  all  members  of  one  brotherhood,  and  capable 
of  one  friendship,  one  virtue,  one  taste,  one  piety, — ten 
thousand  worlds  full  of  one  music,  one  art,  one  tender- 
ness, one  virtue,  one  creature, — man, — one  God. 

Modern  RevivaUsts  and  Hebrew  Prophets. 

This  group  of  Hebrews  differed  from  the  modern 
evangelists  in  this,  that  the  evangelists  have  their  eyes 
fixed  upon  heaven,  while  the  Hebrews  toiled  for  the  hap- 
piness and  greatness  of  their  nation.  The  difference  be- 
tween a  modern  revivalist  and  a  Hebrew  prophet  is  the 
difference  between  Whitfield  and  Edmund  Burke.  Both 
those  men  were  religious,  and  each  pursued  a  great  path, 
but  the  paths  were  not  one  and  the  same.  Whitfield's 
heart  was  full  of  all  that  is  beyond  the  grave  ;  Mr. 
Burke's  heart  was  busy  with  all  that  is  noble  on  this 
side.  The  revivalist  says,  "perhaps  you  will  die  to- 
night ; ' '  the  Hebrew  prophets  said,  ' '  perhaps  you  will 
be  here  to-morrow.  Your  vices  will  harm  your  children 
to  the  third  and  fourth  generation."  If  any  one  broke 
the  Hebrew  command  about  graven  images  God's  wrath 
would  follow  that  offender,  not  into  eternity  but  in  his 


DAVID   SWING.  91 

family  on  earth  for  three  generations.  If  children  hon- 
ored their  parents  their  days  in  this  world  would  be 
long.  Long  would  such  children  wander  in  the  hills  and 
fields  of  Judea.     The  revivalist  sings  : 

*  *  lyO  !  on  a  narrow  neck  of  land, 
Twixt  two  unbounded  seas  I  stand, 

Yet  how  insensible  ! 
A  moment's  time,  a  point  in  space 
Removes  me  to  the  heavenly  place. 
Or  shuts  me  up  in  hell." 

In  the  sad  hours  of  the  prophets  their  tears  gushed 
out  of  the  thought  that  the  King  of  Kings  would  "cut 
off  their  horses,  would  destroy  their  chariots,  would 
cut  down  their  cities  and  throw  down  all  their  strong- 
holds ;  they  should  sow  but  not  reap,  press  out  the  olive 
oil  but  not  use  it,  grow  vines  but  not  gather  the  grapes. 
Their  heaven  was  to  be  the  splendor  of  Jerusalem,  their 
hell  was  found  in  that  day  when  enemies  should  beat 
down  her  gates.  Both  utterances  are  great — that  of  the 
modern  Christian  and  that  of  the  old  Hebrew — but  one 
is  the  greatness  of  death,  its  suddenness  and  mystery  ; 
the  other  is  the  greatness  which  is  wrapped  up  in  the 
destiny  of  an  educated  and  happy  people  Cardinal  New- 
man was  great  in  his  hymn  which  closes  with  the  words: 

"  And  in  the  morn  those  angel  faces  smile 
Which  I  have  loved  long  since  and  lost  awhile." 

but  so  was  the  last  sentence  of  the  Hebrew  Malachi, 
"that  unless  fathers  and  children  were  faithful  to  their 
God  he  would  smite  their  land  with  a  curse."  The  mod- 
ern mind  was  thinking  about  the  human  soul  in  its  last 
last  hour,  the  ancient  was  dreaming  about  a  blessed  or 
ruined  country. 


92  ECHOES 

Good  Out  of  Nazareth. 

The  proverb  that  no  good  could  come  out  of  Nazareth, 
once  met  with  a  wonderful  rebuke.  Out  of  a  land  so 
unpromising  came  a  Christ.  Out  of  the  Roman  Church, 
notwithstanding  the  dark  stains  upon  its  character,  there 
have  in  all  the  old  centuries  shone  forth  at  times  rays  of 
beautiful  light,  as  when  the  sun  gleams  out  from  among 
the  clouds.  From,  that  Church  came  Fenelon,  Massillon 
Guyon,  names  that  would  not  by  comparison  disgrace  the 
holiest  ones  of  the  human  race.  And  particularly  in  this 
land,  from  the  Gulf  to  the  Canadas,  have  the  holy  fathers 
trodden  when  other  hearts  quailed  before  the  dangers  and 
the  depressing  solitudes  of  this  once  desolate  world.  The 
Indians  of  the  Canadas  differ  to-day  from  the  blood- 
thirsty, brutal  Sioux,  because,  led  by  the  Catholic 
priests,  the  Northern  tribes,  before  you  and  I  were  born, 
learned  to  look  at  the  crucifix  and  bow  in  prayer.  Out 
of  the  old  Catholic  Church  came  Xavier.  Rich  in  gold, 
but  richer  still  in  spirit,  high  by  titles  of  rank,  but 
higher  still  by  that  manhood  which  Christ  confers, 
nothing  offered  him  happiness  but  the  wide  search  for 

souls. 

The  Hindoo's  Countless  Gods. 

It  is  evident  that  when  the  Creator  formed  man  he 
placed  within  him  a  religious  sentiment,  a  sense  of  a 
superior  existence,  and  this  being  the  nature  of  the  sub- 
jective mind,  the  outer  realm  became  at  once  peopled 
with  supernatural  creatures.  As  the  fever-stricken 
dream  of  fountains  of  water,  so  the  religious  nature  of 
man  dreams  of  gods.  In  its  ignorant  age  it  sees  deitj-  in 
wood  or  stone,  and  sees  hundreds  or  thousands  of  them. 
The  modern  Hindoo  says  he  believes  in  three  hundred 
millions  of  gods.  This  confession  is  valuable,  for  it  shows 
the  inner  religious  sentiment  looking  out  of  the  mind. 


DAVID   SWING.  93 

Woman  an  ISccentric  Character. 

The  conv'entlin  of  woman's  clubs  awakens  thoughts  of 
that  day,  not  far  off,  when  here  and  there  a  woman  dared 
publish  some  words  in  favor  of  a  wider  liberty  and  arena 
for  her  race.  When  a  woman  spoke  in  the  name  of  her 
cause,  her  audience  was  small  and  otherwise  insignificant. 
A  few  persons  of  some  standing  tip-toed  their  way  into  a 
back  seat  and  then  took  pains  to  explain  that  they  were 
present  in  the  name  of  a  passing  curiosity.  With  a  great 
scholarly  snicker  they  would  explain  next  day  to  the 
village  parson  that  they  went  last  night  to  hear  that 
woman  speak;  went  just  for  fun;  but  heard  some  things 
that  were  not  so  bad  after  all.  To  which  confessions  the 
parson  would  say  kindly:  "She  is  an  eccentric  character, 
very  fond  of  notoriety,  wants  to  see  her  name  in  the 
newspaper."  And  having  uttered  such  profound  words, 
the  preacher  would  hurry  on  to  the  village  printing  office 
to  hand  in  his  theme  of  discourse  for  the  next  Sunday. 

No  Need  to  I/ay  in  Firearms. 

In  the  presence  of  the  slight  disturbances,  now  existing 
between  Protestants  and  Catholics,  a  discord  which  has 
induced  some  of  these  church  people  to  lay  in  a  store  of 
firearms  as  though  a  civil  war  were  about  to  begin,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  same  Nation  and  century 
that  are  making  new  Calvinists  and  new  Methodists,  are 
making  new  Catholics.  Nothing  could  persuade  our  era 
to  reconstruct  a  Presb5'terian  and  pass  by  the  children  of 
the  Pope.  We  might  as  well  ask  our  Roman  Archbishop 
if  any  snow  fell  not  long  since  around  his  cathedral.  It 
was  banked  up  ten  feet  high  against  all  the  Protestant 
walls.  Were  the  Catholics  omitted  by  that  Monday 
drift?     Thus  when  education,    kindness,  and  Christian 


g^  ■  ECHOES 

fellowship,  and  all  charity  come  by  what  form  of  logic 
do  we  conclude  that  the  children  of  Rome  catch  no  part 
of  this  outpoured  good  ?  Inasmuch  as  many  millions  of 
that  host  come  from  the  poverty  and  injustice  of  the  old 
despotisms  they  may  not  be  as  sensitive  as  the  native 
Americans  to  the  touch  of  the  new  dispensation,  but  the 
new  air  and  new  sunshine  cannot  overlook  these  living 
hearts.  So  rapid  and  great  is  the  pressure  of  a  new  world 
upon  all  the  minds  within  its  confines,  that  a  few  years 
ago,  when  our  country  fought  against  dismemberment, 
thousands  of  Catholics  hastened  to  fight  and  die  for  her 
flag.  Some  of  these  men  had  not  been  here  many  j-ears, 
but  the  spirit  of  the  Republic  had  crept  over  them. 
Quite  a  number  of  our  officers  had  from  childhood  said 
their  prayers  at  the  Catholic  shrine. 

Jeremiah's  Tears. 
Many  thoughts  might  arise  over  this  fact — the  unvary- 
ing theocracy  of  old  empires — but  it  is  lesson  enough  for 
the  hour  to  remember  that  Isaiah,  and  Daniel,  and  John 
of  the  wilderness  were  not  simple  religionists,  they  were 
the  ordinary  statesmen  of  the  people.  Isaiah,  Daniel  and 
all  the  great  Hebrews  had  in  mind  a  righteous  and 
blessed  national  life.  They  were  not  revivalists  in  the 
recent  sense  of  that  term  ;  they  were  reformers  more  after 
the  likeness  of  the  recent  Penns,  and  Cobdens,  and 
Brights,  with  only  this  difference,  the  Hebrews  were 
statesmen  in  a  nation  where  God  was  king.  Those 
statesmen  were  all  religious  statesmen.  The  Jere- 
miahs were  created  by  national  vices,  just  as  our 
Wilberforce  was  created  by  slavery,  and  our  Henry 
Bergh  by  the  age's  inhumanity  towards  brutes.  Open 
Jeremiah  at  random,  and  he  is  seen  crying  out :  "  Oh, 
that  my  head  were  a  fountain  of  tears,  that  I  might  weep 


DAVID   SWING.  95 

day  and  night  for  the  slain  of  my  people  !  Oh,  that 
I  might  find  in  the  wilderness  a  lodging  place  for 
wanderers,  that  I  might  leave  my  people  and  go  from 
them,  for  they  are  all  false,  an  assembly  of  treacherous 
men.  They  bend  their  tounge  as  their  bow  for  falsehood. 
They  have  grown  strong,  but  not  foi  the  truth.  They 
go  from  evil  to  evil.  Every  one  is  watching  his  neigh- 
bor. No  brother  trusts  brother.  Every  neighbor  will 
go  about  with  his  slanders,  they  have  taught  their 
tongue  to  speak  lies  **>!<**  Woe 
unto  him  that  buildeth  his  house  by  unrighteousness, 
his  chambers  by  injustice,  that  usetli  his  neighbor's 
labor  without  wages,  giving  him  not  his  hire  ;  that  saith  : 
I  will  build  me  a  wide  house  with  large  chambers,  I  wull 
line  it  with  cedar  and  paint  it  with  vermillion.  Shalt 
thou  reign  because  thou  mayest  excel  in  cedar  ?  Did  not 
thy  father  do  judgment  and  justice?  Then  was  it  well 
with  him.  He  judged  the  cause  of  the  poor  and  needy. 
But  thine  ej^es  turn  toward  oppression,  blood  and  all 
violence.  At  last  no  one  shall  call  the  brother  ;  no  one 
shall  lament  thee  ;  thou  shall  be  drawn  and  cast  forth 
beyond  the  gates  of  Jerusalem  and  shalt  receive  the 
burial  of  a  dead  ass.'  "  Thus  Jeremiah  muttered  and 
thundered,  raved  and  wept  over  the  sins  which  were 
sinking  into  misery  and  infamy  the  nation  so  many  noble 
men  had  deeplj^  loved.  He  was  necessarily  a  mind  of 
great  purity  and  susceptibility  and  could  not  but  turn 
into  a  lamentation  the  dishonesty  and  weakness  of  the 
time. 

The  Name  "United  States"  2  New  Name. 

A  nation,  like  an  individual,  has  its  hours  of  ill  health, 
days  when  the  heart  fears  that  it  may  be  on  the  border  of 
death.     But  only  as  centuries  can   make  a  great  nation 


96  ECHOES 

live,  so  nothing  but  long  illness  can  make  it  die.  Many 
of  our  early  years  were  lived  under  the  name  of  England. 
Then  was  wrought  out  our  language,  then  our  literature 
was  written.  The  name  United  States  is  only  a  new 
name.  It  is  no  measure  of  our  lifetime.  Our  principles 
are  all  venerable.  The  troubles  of  to-day  are  not  great 
enough  to  threaten  the  life  of  the  State.  What  enormous, 
calamities  are  liable  to  settle  down  upon  the  career  of  a 
State.  Think  of  England  from  the  times  of  King  John 
to  the  eighteenth  centur)' — almost  five  hundred  j-ears  ol 
battle.  Think  of  the  Netherlands.  And  then  to  these 
troubles  of  nations  add  all  the  bloody  tumults  of  France. 
Compared  with  these  pages  of  history  our  Republic  is 
enjoying  a  profound  peace.  Indeed  it  is  wonderful  that 
our  country  has  been  able  to  extract  so  much  of  sunshine 
from  a  sky  which  in  former  ages  was  so  prolific  of  dark 
storms. 

Industry  and  IVove. 

The  martyrs,  the  inventors,  the  missionaries  from  Paul 
to  Xavier,  the  mighty  men  that  have  shaken  the  world 
and  then  made  it  come  to  their  tombs  to  weep,  have  all 
woven  their  imperishable  wreaths  from  the  laws  ol 
industr>'  and  love,  and  faith  and  hope  which  they  loved 
and  fulfilled,  and  not  from  the  criminal  laws  which  they 
did  not  violate.  If  not  to  kill,  not  to  steal,  not  to  wor- 
ship an  idol,  made  great  men,  the  road  thitherward 
would  be  easy.  Not  here  amid  these  criminal  statutes 
can  you  and  I  find,  therefore,  the  path  to  the  best  exist- 
ence. We  must  obey  them  easily  and  always,  and  then 
seek  new  worlds  to  conquer. 

The  Bver  Rolling  Web  of  I,ife. 

The  educated  class  demand  a  modification  of  the 
popular  religion  to  this  extent,  that  it  must  be  made  to 


DAVID   SWING.  97 

meet  the  wants  of  this  life.  As  men  progress  in  educa- 
tion and  thought,  earth  with  all  its  interests  becomes 
larger  instead  of  smaller.  The  "ever  unrolling  web  of 
life"  expanding  out  into  youth,  manhood,  womanhood, 
into  homes  by  the  hillside,  into  cities  by  the  lake  and 
sea,  into  continents,  into  vast  literatures  and  arts,  grows 
more  wonderful  as  the  human  mind  gathers  power  to 
grasp  the  great  spectacle.  Had  we  all  ten  times  the 
power  to  perceive  the  greatness  of  our  world,  we  should 
weep  to-day  over  the  sublimity  of  this  great  wave  of 
human  life.  To  us  so  far  away  from  the  planet  Jupiter, 
it  twinkles  only  as  a  large  dew-drop  But  could  we  be 
carried  to  within  a  few  miles  of  its  shores,  we  should  be 
filled  with  amazement  at  the  gigantic  world  into  which 
that  twinkling  star  would  expand.  Perhaps  to  our  eye 
would  come  the  vision  of  fields. 

Where  everlasting  Spring  abides, 
And  never  fading  flowers, 

and  to  our  ear  would  come,  as  to  the  Italian  poet  in 
paradise,  "  the  rolling  melody  of  bird-song." 

God  Dismissed  from  Human  Thought. 

It  would  be  an  alarming  experiment  if  the  King  of 
Kings  were  to  be  dismissed  from  the  minds  of  the  people 
of  this  country,  for  the  notion  of  such  an  infinite  being 
is  the  ideal  by  which  society  measures  not  only  its  duties, 
but  also  its  greatness  and  its  hopes.  The  deity  is  the 
storehouse  in  which  humanity  treasures  up  its  best 
thoughts.  The  storehouse  can  never  become  full,  for 
however  wise  and  kind  society  m£.y  become,  the  name  of 
God  opens  to  receive  all  the  human  conceptions  of  good. 
This  God  has  always  beckoned  man  on  and  on.  Whether 
Moses   looked,  or   Daniel,  or  Isaiah,  or  Plato,  or  Paul 


98  ECHOES 

lifted  the  eye  to  heaven,  each  saw  a  Being  far  bej^ond  the 
knowledge  or  goodness  of  self.  Wonderful  treasurer  of 
our  world.  He  casts  away  our  dross  and  retains  all  our 
gold!  His  angels  bear  man  up  lest  he  dash  his  foot 
against  a  stone.  Cities  have  fallen.  Their  ruins  adorn 
and  solemnize  the  old  East.  The  temples  have  fallen 
where  the  Jewish  and  Greek  statesmen  began  their 
speeches  with  prayer,  but  the  God  they  all  worshiped, 
gathered  up  all  their  moral  beauties  and  bore  them 
onward  toward  the  Christian  period  without  loss. 

De  Troquemada. 

Thomas  DeToquemada  performed  his  cruel  exploits 
about  1480.  He  put  to  death  eight  thousand  heretics 
and  banished  from  Spain  eight  hundred  thousand  Jews; 
but  after  his  day  England  and  America  stole  from  Africa 
a  million  negroes  and  worked  them  by  force  and  gave 
them  no  pay  for  their  labor.  The  massacre  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew came  in  1572.  The  O'Neil  rebellion  wrought 
its  great  slaughter  of  Protestants  in  1641.  Thus  the 
terrible  exploits  of  the  Romanists  lie  wholly  in  the  far 
past,  and  if  the  Protestants  have  been  made  new  in  these 
later  days,  it  cannot  but  be  true  that  some  new  humanity 
and  new  morals  have  come  to  the  church  of  Rome. 

The  UseftiUness  of  To-day. 

Eet  me  remind  you  that  the  great  outside  world  needs 
your  benevolence  and  religion  now.  In  twenty  years 
the  countless  children  and  the  countless  poor  of  this  city 
and  the  land  will  have  passed  beyond  the  valley  of 
blessing.  There  is  a  multitude  which  no  one  can  bless 
but  you,  and  you  can  do  that  service  only  now.  The 
good  that  shall  come  a  score  of  years  hence  will  come  to 
a  different  throng.     Those  that  now  swarm  around  you 


DAVID  SWING.  99 

will  have  passed  away,  uneducated,  uncheered,  unloved. 
Some  poetess,  sitting  in  a  lonely  room  and  reading  about 
the  tears  of  love  and  pity  that  had  fallen  over  some 
orphan's  grave,  wrote  a  touching  rebuke  in  the  poem, 
"Love  me  before  I  die." 

Watching  and  Fighting. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  earthquake  lands  pass  many 
an  hour  of  tremulous  apprehehsion.  The  earth  seems 
about  to  become  false  under  foot.  The  sea  seems  about 
to  rise  in  a  tidal  wave.  When  some  heavy  sound  comes 
in  the  night  strong  men  rise  from  their  pillow  to  watch 
and  listen.  Thus  the  Jewish  race  watched  and  trembled 
and  fought.  Between  revolts  and  invasions  the  years  of 
peace  were  few.  The  wealth  of  Jerusalem  made  it  a 
grand  prize  in  a  world  where  soldiers  were  only  organized 
banditti.  Against  it  all  armies  flung  their  forces  all 
along  from  Shishak  of  Egypt  to  Cypress  of  Persia. 
" The  Assyrians  came  down  like  a  wolf  on  the  fold." 
The  Chaldeans  plundered  and  burned  the  temple.  War, 
civil  or  defensive,  came  in  successive  waves  for  a  thous- 
and years,  but  these  were  not  years  enough  to  exhaust 
the  patriotism  or  the  power  of  the  statesmen.  They 
arose  again  and  again  in  their  majestic,  divine  politics, 
and  as  often  lifted  up  the  people  by  offering  them  the 
picture  of  a  potentate  angry  or  a  potentate  pleased,  the 
picture  of  a  country  ruined  or  a  Jerusalem  the  joy  and 
beauty  of  the  whole  world. 

Andoniram  Judson. 

The  name  of  Judson  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  same 
spirit  bursting  forth  from  the  Protestant  world ;  but  with 
this  difference  of  scene,  that  at  last  the  beauty  and 
impressiveness  of  any  one  star  is  lost  in  the  grandeur  of 


lOO  ECHOES 

a  whole  heaven  bestudded  in  all  its  blue.  Judson  led  in 
the  mighty  works  of  this  century,  a  kind  of  morning 
star  running  before  its  great  sunshine.  For  about  forty 
years  he  toiled  for  his  fellowmen,  and  repeated  in  the 
the  nineteenth  century  what  Paul  had  done  in  the  first, 
and  Xavier  in  the  sixteenth.  It  is  all  one  story — love, 
labor,  sufiering,  and  heroic  death.  If  you  will  study 
these  three  lives  until  your  heart  can  see  these  three 
heroes  going  forth  each  day  to  their  toil,  you  will  have 
in  your  possession  something  that  will  keep  ever  before 
you  the  the  sublime  attributes  of  man,  and  will  make 
you  feel  that  perhaps  humanity  was  made  in  the  image 
of  God. 

Religion  Fighting  Vice  Only. 

Perhaps  the  religious  world  wronged  all  us  children 
when  we  were  young  by  leaving  us  to  feel  that  God  had 
passed  for  us  only  laws  against  vice.  We  know  not 
where  to  lay  the  blame.  But  this  we  know,  that  God 
hovered  around  all  these  laws  of  sin,  and  when  we 
stood  away  from  them  we  seemed  to  stand  away  from 
any  commandments  which  came  from  the  Creator.  All 
other  truths  of  the  world  seemed  only  the  ideas  of 
philosophy  or  science.  The  holy  voice  of  Heaven  did 
not  seem  to  sound  through  them. 

New  School  Presbyterianism. 
Much  was  said  some  years  ago  about  a  new  school  of 
Presbyterians,  but  the  papers  and  the  pulpits  forgot  to 
allude  to  any  new  school  of  carpenters,  and  a  new  school 
of  farmers  and  blacksmiths.  The  age  that  affects  the 
preacher  affects  the  painter  and  sculptor.  The  Presby- 
terians hastened  to  adopt  the  word  "new,"  but  without 
adopting  any   additional   adjective,   the   Methodists  be- 


DAVID   SWING.  lOI 

came  as  new  as  the  Calvanists,  and  the  Baptists  became 
as  new  as  the  Methodists. 

Newness. 

* '  Newness ' '  is  not  a  voluntary  virtue.  Man  does  not 
go  and  order  it  as  he  orders  a  new  suit.  He  goes  about 
his  daily  task,  and  the  new  robe  comes  to  him.  The 
century  weaves  the  fabric,  and  fits  it  to  the  unsuspecting 
mortal ;  and  all  he  knows  is  that  whereas  he  was  an  old 
school  carpenter,  or  blacksmith,  or  preacher,  now  he  is 
"new  school,"  all  fresh  and  shining.  Like  Cinderella, 
men  little  know  how  they  exchange  ashes  for  silk. 

Old  and  Immortal. 

It  is  bad  indeed  to  be  negligent  as  to  the  world  far 
back  of  us,  but  it  is  worse  to  permit  the  mind  to  add 
prejudice  to  common  neglect,  and  to  go  to  such  an 
extreme  as  to  dislike  a  Moses,  an  Isaiah,  a  Paul,  or  an 
Apollos.  No  mind  has  any  right  to  contain  a  prejudice. 
A  prejudice  is  an  hitellectual  infirmity.  It  is  a  confes- 
sion that  one  does  not  desire  to  act  reasonably.  It  is  like 
taking  refuge  behind  a  law  passed  for  the  protection  of 
minors.  Paul,  the  Apostle  John  the  Baptist,  Moses, 
Isaiah  and  Daniel,  ought  to  stand  up  before  us  in  all  the 
attractiveness  of  the  Xenophons  and  Ciceros,  unless  we 
can  find  some  good  reason  for  looking  upon  the  Hebrew 
group  with  less  esteem.  All  were  alike  the  children  of 
our  world  and  our  race;  and  all  were  alike  impressive  in 
their  day,  and  for  reasons  essentially  the  same.  They 
all  pursued  the  same  means  to  the  same  ends.  It  was 
this  one  fact,  this  unity  of  purpose  and  conduct,  that 
made  all  those  old  names  immortal.  If  Homer  wrote 
poetry,  so  did  the  author  of  the  book  of  Job;  if  Socrates 
taught  the  young  men  a  higher  life,  so  did  Daniel,  so 


I02 


ECHOES 


John,  the  Apostle.  Many  names  are  thus  all  in  one  in 
the  strange  brotherhood  of  pursuit.  The  soul  was  one 
whether  it  spoke  in  Hebrew,  or  Greek,  or  Latin.  The 
teachings  of  Jesus  have  reached  society  in  perhaps  fifty 
languages,  but  this  change  of  words  has  never  aflfected 
the  ideas.  It  is  not  known  in  what  language  the  great 
moral  lessons  were  first  .spoken.  Thus  language  is  insig- 
nsficant  compared  with  the  ideas  it  contains.  We  are 
bound,  therefore,  to  feel  that  although  the  great  names 
of  antiquity  come  to  us  by  way  of  many  languages,  the 
minds  are  all  one.  The  names  stand  for  a  family  of 
brothers,  who  are  not  separated  by  mountain  or  sea  or 
speech. 

Cultivate  Your  Reason. 

To  cultivate  reason  is  one  of  the  highest  duties,  be- 
cause then  her  wise  orders  are  issued  to  all  the  other 
impulses  of  the  soul,  and  a  varied  world  passes  from 
chaos  into  harmony.  Is  there  anything  then  in  which 
we  can  trust  nature  alone  ?  Are  there  any  hours  that 
are  independent  of  this  reason  ?  It  appears  not.  But 
there  are  hours  into  which  it  has  not  been  the  world's 
custom  to  bring  reason  into  play.  There  are  hours  in 
which  we  all  act  as  so  many  little  children,  and  know  no 
law  but  nature.  Among  these  hours  are  those  of  hope 
and  fond  anticipation.  To-morrow  is  loaded  down  with 
the  things  we  intend  to  do  and  to  have.  There  is  no 
faculty  of  the  soul  so  overworked  as  this  faculty  of  ex- 
pectation. If  all  shall  come  out  of  the  future  which  we 
are  all  pouring  into  it,  we  shall  have  a  marvelous  world 
before  long.  The  tame,  sad  facts  of  these  days  will  soon 
give  place  to  islands  of  milk  and  honey,  and  to  palaces 
of  Aladdin, 


DAVID   .SWING.  103 

Christ  as  a  Fact. 

Above  all  other  super-human  ones  He  stands  farthest 
from  myth,  and  nearest  to  reality.  Mark,  then,  the 
superiority  of  Christ  as  a  fact.  The  Christian  poet  can 
not  say,  with  the  classic,  "All  I  know  of  thee,  is  thy 
name, ' '  and  they  that  erect  an  altar  to  him  can  not  write 
over  it,  to  "  the  unknown  God."  The  reality  of  Jesus 
is  as  definite,  as  undeniable,  as  the  reality  of  Wash- 
ington or  Franklin,  All  the  other  incarnations  belong 
to  the  atmosphere  of  legand.  No  twelve  disciples 
gathered  daily  around  the  feet  of  Olympian  Jove,  or  of 
the  beautiful  Apollo,  nor  of  the  gifted  Minerva.  No 
multitude  gathered  upon  the  mountain-side  to  hear  and 
see  the  Hercules  and  Aphrodite.  If  some  crowd,  acting 
in  the  historic  period,  in  the  days  of  language  and 
words,  had  followed  the  Apollo  along  the  streets  of 
Jerusalem  or  Athens,  and  had  even  crucified  him,  then 
would  the  Christian  Gospel  confess  a  rivel  in  the  pagen 
pages.  But  it  was  the  misfortune  of  all  that  Olympian 
group  that  there  was  no  Judas  to  betray  any  one  of  them 
with  a  kiss,  and  no  Pilate  to  order  any  one  of  them  to 
the  cross.  They  all  lived  outside  the  bounds  of  evi- 
dence, and  hence  to-day  appear  only  like  the  picture  of 
the  virtues  or  the  graces,  outward  expressions  of  the 
inner  soul. 

A  Beautiful  Heaven  and  a  Beautiful  America. 

It  does  not  affect  the  duty  of  the  pulpit  that  it  has 
added  immortality  to  the  earth.  It  must  still  like 
Daniel,  Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah,  make  its  country  the  subject 
of  perpetual  work  and  affection.  It  is  well  known  that  the 
Jews  assumed  a  future  life  and  lived  and  died  on  its 
alluring  borders.  If  Jesus  brought  this  second  life  into 
the  visible  foreground  of  speech  and  motion  he  only  thus 


104 


ECHOES 


compelled  his  ministers  to  be  the  statesmen  of  two 
countries  instead  of  one.  To  save  a  citizen  from  drunken- 
ness and  to  save  a  soul  from  hell  are  acts  in  one  and  the 
same  philosophy.  A  beautiful  heaven  and  a  beautiful 
America  are  one  and  the  same  dream.  The  clergyman 
must  therefore  be  a  statesman  for  the  lands  on  both  sides 
of  death's  river.  When  man  believes  in  a  Supreme 
Potentate  then  his  nation  reaches  from  the  cradle  of  a 
poor  infant  to  an  archangel's  crown. 

••God  the  only  Potentate." 
The  phrase  used  by  St.  Paul,  "God,  the  only  Poten- 
tate, the  King  of  Kings,"  casts  light  upon  quite  a  long 
roll  of  past  writers  and  orators,  and  sets  them  before  us 
not  as  religious  fanatics,  but  as  the  true  statesmen  of  the 
early  empires.  All  the  old  nations  were  founded  upon 
God  as  the  Chief  King.  To  this  custom  there  was  no 
exception  in  remote  times.  The  God  or  the  gods  pre- 
sided in  all  national  affairs.  Even  the  Greek  State, 
although  the  most  rationalized  of  all  the  old  govern- 
ments, put  to  death  its  greatest  philosopher  because  he 
was  leading  the  youth  away  from  the  old  grasp  of  gov- 
erning deities.  Plato  was  as  religious  as  Isaiah.  Xeno- 
phon  wrote  a  treatise  on  theology.  Demosthenes  opened 
his  greatest  oration  with  a  beautiful  prayer,  and  closed  it 
with  an  appeal  to  the  only  Potentate — the  King  of  all 
Kings.  Israel  did  not  want  a  theocracy.  It  simply  fell 
in  with  the  existing  world,  and  differed  from  Egypt  and 
the  surrounding  tribes  only  in  possessing  a  better  con- 
ception of  the  heavenly  potentate.  The  temple  of  Solo- 
mon is  dear  to  us  because  our  religion  came  out  of  it 
as  our  rivers  come  out  of  our  mountains,  but  we  must 
not  permit  our  temple  to  conceal  those  sanctuaries  whose 
columns  stand  along  the  Nile,  or   in   such  beauty  at 


DAVID  SWING.  105 

Athens,  or  which  crumble  in  Rome  or  number  a  thousand 
columns  in  the  ruins  of  Palmyra,  or  amaze  the  modern 
traveler  by  the  ruins  at  Baalbec.  The  Parthenon,  which 
cost  six  millions  of  our  dollars  in  those  cheap  times,  was 
a  temple  to  the  Deity,  the  columns  of  which,  sixty  feet 
high,  stand  at  Baalbec,  were  sacred  to  heaven  ;  they  were 
all  in  place  and  in  beauty  in  the  times  of  Solomon,  while 
Abraham  himself  may  have  stood  and  gazed  at  the 
mighty  religious  structure  at  Heliopolis. 

Paul,  Xavier,  Judson. 

O,  loftiest  spirit  of  earth,  the  soul  of  Paul,  or  a  Xavier, 
or  a  Judson  !  What  want  there  may  seem  of  beauty 
comes  from  our  inability  to  rise  high  enough  in  our 
feelings  to  see  and  measure  this  grandeur.  It  is  said  that 
men  throw  their  offerings  down  at  the  feet  of  the  gods 
because  the  human  eye  is  unable  to  see  and  the  human 
arm  too  short  to  enable  the  worshiper  to  place  his  garlands 
upon  the  forehead  of  Deity.  With  similar  weakness  and 
humility  we  all,  of  a  mercenary  and  infidel  age,  being 
unable  to  see  and  reach  the  divine  forehead  of  this 
missionary  spirit,  that  loftiest  shape  of  soul,  can  not  do 
otherwise  than  come  to-day  and  whisper  our  words  of 
homage  at  her  feet.  The  ancients  saw  in  their  sacred 
vales  and  woods  three  graces,  and  at  times,  in  poetic 
moments,  nine  muses  ;  but  this  single  grace,  the  spirit  of 
love,  this  wandering  virtue  of  missions,  surpasses  all  the 
old  fabled  ones  of  history. 

The  I/arge  Part  of  I^ife  Should  Come  First. 

But  suppose  life  to  run  a  long,  and  death  to  be  far  away; 
what  man  most  needs  is  that  the  large  part  of  his  life 
should  come  first,  that  all  the  subsequent  years  may  be 
lifted  up  and  held  up  by  the  strong  arms  of  the  past.     It 


I06  ECHOES 

is  melancholy  to  have  the  soul  realize  the  greatness  of 
earth  when  it  is  just  leaving  it  forever. 

Religion  Faithful  to  the  Ages. 
Here  upon  earth  God  is  sitting  upon  a  throne  of  ages, 
and  by  our  deeds  done  here  we  weave  for  ourselves  the 
chaplets  of  immortality.  Hence,  man  demands  a  reli- 
gion that  shall  be  full  of  faithfulness  to  these  years,  a 
religion  which  utters  to  earth  the  poet's  words  with  high 
adaption: 

"Oh,  grand  world,  being  about  to  die  we  salute  thee." 
Morituri  Salutamus, 

'  'Ye  halls  in  whose  seclusion  and  repose, 
Phantoms  of  fame  like  exhalations  rose 
And  vanished,  we  who  are  about  to  die 
Salute  you  ;  earth,  and  air,  and  sea,  and  sky, 
And  the  imperial  sun  that  scatters  down 
His  sovereign  splendor  upon  grove  and  town." 

Thus,  must  the  Christianity  of  our  day  refit  itself  to 
the  new  era.  It  can  count  no  longer  upon  a  childhood 
that  loves  forms  nor  upon  a  public  ignorance  that  drinks 
in  all  doctrines.  It  should  not  remain  neglectful  of  the 
fact  that  there  is  rising  up  a  class  powerful  in  education 
and  in  reason  and  in  virtue,  a  class  that  does  not  fill  our 
jails,  but  that  makes  our  laws,  that  sits  upon  the  judge's 
bench,  that  shapes  our  literature  and  molds  our  social 
life. 

How  Men  Have  I^oved  War ! 

It  is  when  some  great  lesson  is  unveiled,  the  bearers  of 
the  new  principle  must  hasten  to  make  the  people  see  its 
beauty.  Take  the  idea  of  peace  among  nations.  The 
human  race  has  been  attached  to  war.  No  Calvinist 
ever  loved  the  doctrine  of  eternal  fire  as  ardently  as  the 


DAVID  SWING.  107 

world  has  loved  war.  Machiavelli  said  that  "war  ought 
to  be  the  only  study  of  a  Prince;  that  peace  should  be 
only  a  resting  spell  in  which  men  should  get  ready  for 
war."  Other  statesmen  of  his  day  said:  "War  is  man's 
essential  nature."  It  will  be  difficult  to  beat  down  and 
destroy  such  a  bloody  sentiment.  But  difficult  as  the 
task  may  be,  it  can  be  accomplished.  Peace  can  so  shine 
through  all  literature,  all  eloquence,  all  religion,  and  all 
art  that  at  last  the  human  mind  wijl  travel  over  from  war 
to  peace,  and  will  bless  all  those  who  taught  it  to  sing 
the  sweeter  song.  But  it  will  take  more  than  a  half  cen- 
tury for  mankind  to  make  this  exchange  of  sentiments. 

"  Beyond  the  Wall  of  Our  Own  I<ife  We  See  I^ittle." 

Each  person  is  so  much  at  home  in  his  own  time  and 
place  that  all  the  world  away  from  himself  seems  only  a 
great  failure.  When  not  thought  of  as  a  failure,  all 
remote  times  are  passed  by  as  not  having  really  existed. 
Man's  consciousness  is  at  work  in  the  present.  Each  of 
us  knows  all  about  the  little  spot  bounded  by  our  twenty, 
or  forty  or  sixty  years.  Beyond  the  wall  of  our  own 
life  we  see  but  little.  There  is  30  much  to  be  seen 
within  our  own  time  that  we  have  little  leisure  for 
looking  over  the  stream  which  separates  the  present 
from  the  past.  And  had  we  the  leisure  for  studying  the 
past,  the  hearts  do  not  care  about  it.  The  heart  being 
unable  to  love  two  objects,  it  greatly  prefers  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  the  tenth,  and  nestles  close  up  to 
America  and  slights  Rome.  When  some  one  visits  us 
from  Sweden  or  Russia,  we  pity  him  because  he  lives  so 
far  off.  We  indeed  find  the  real  only  round  our  own 
feet.  All  things  grow  shadowy  as  they  spring  up  away 
from  our  sight  and  touch.  We  all  hear  and  accept  many 
allegations  about  the  near  and  far  past,  but  they  seem 


Io8  HCHOES 

more  like  pictures  in  a  gallery  than  like  events  in  actual 
experience.  When  we  see  the  picture  of  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots,  our  sensations  end  in  the  picture.  It  is  a 
dream.  We  do  not  see  the  young  girl,  Mary  Stuart, 
passing  along  through  her  eighth  and  tenth  years,  fond 
of  nature,  fond  of  her  books,  talkative,  playing  with  her 
young  companions.  All  is  enveloped  in  a  cloud.  The 
dimness  increases  as  the  distance  in  time  increases,  and 
when  the  name  of  Paul  is  pronounced  it  does  not  recall 
even  a  picture  of  a  vanished  face.  Little  realism  comes 
from  the  name.  The  name  is  little  else  than  a  sound. 
The  heart  declines  to  have  much  to  do  with  objects  that 
are  so  far  off.  This  dimness  of  the  past  is  not  all  the 
inevitable  result  of  human  nature,  but  it  is  in  part  a 
result  of  personal  choice.  Many  persons  refuse  to  study 
history,  and  refuse  to  make  real  what  they  do  study  ; 
and  thus  by  their  own  act  the  past  is  moved  millions  of 
years  away,  when  in  truth  it  might  be  only  over  the 
garden  wall.  The  nearness  of  India,  Rome,  Greece  to 
us  depends  largely  upon  our  wish.  If  we  close  our 
hearts  against  them,  of  course  they  cannot  come  to  us. 
There  is  a  large  army  of  past  heroes  and  worthies  who 
would  gladly  come  to  our  homes  were  they  only  in- 
vited. Friendship  must  be  cultivated .  not  only  with 
the  living,  but  also  with  the  dead. 

The  Rights  of  Dumb  Brutes. 

Thus  the  new  ideas  about  the  rights  of  dumb  brutes, 
the  rights  of  children,  the  rights  of  the  heathen  myriads, 
must  be  repeated  and  repeated  until  they  shall  become  a 
mode  of  modern  thought.  As  men  can  learn  a  new 
language  until  at  last  they  think  in  it  and  dream  in  it, 
and  speak  it  as  unconsciously  as  they  breathe,  so  an  age 
can  gradually  move  into  a  doctrine  of  benevolence  which 


DAVID   SWING.  109 

shall  be  with  it  always,  and  reach  out  toward  all  the 
forms  of  life.  Men  and  women  will  be  kindness  incar- 
nate because  they  will  not  know  anything  else  than  love 
and  equity.  Few  persons  can  remember  when  certain 
principles  and  emotions  came  to  their  own  hearts.  How 
can  one  find  the  day  and  the  hour  when  the  truth  was 
coming  for  years  ?  As  the  cultivated  mind  loves  the 
springtime  more  at  forty  that  it  does  at  twenty;  and  loves 
music  more  in  life's  close  than  in  life's  morning,  so  the 
great  truths  of  church  and  state  and  duty  and  happiness 
spend  many  years  in  getting  fully  into  the  soul.  In 
youth,  kindness  is  intermittent,  in  middle  life  it  becomes 
perennial. 

l^ach  Age  Bows  to  Philosophy. 
Not  a  generation  has  lived  upon  earth  which  has  not, 
after  having  tried  all  the  paths  of  action,  bowed  at  last 
to  the  philosophy  that  it  is  the  steady  light  of  noble 
ideas  that  makes  life  pass  in  blessedness  and  in  peace. 
Home,  industry,  education,  friends,  honor,  and  religion, 
are  the  ministering  angels  that  alone  are  worthy  to  wait 
upon  the  human  soul.  In  their  arms  they  shall  bear 
you  up. 

Guns  for  One  means  Guns  for  All. 

Much  as  it  is  regretted  that  the  Catholic  Church  does 
not  indorse  and  make  use  of  the  public  schools  and 
thank  God  for  a  republic  that  compels  the  taxes  of  the 
rich  to  give  a  common  education  to  all  the  children, 
even  those  of  the  classes  the  most  poor,  yet  we  must  all 
be  in  judgment  the  most  just  and  must  not  assume  that 
to  oppose  our  school  system  is  any  proof  that  the  days  of 
blood  and  torture  are  to  return.  In  these  days  religious 
opinions  do  not  mean  guns.  Once  they  did,  but  that  was 
long  ago  ;  and  in  those  times,  when  opinions  meant  guns 


no 


ECHOES 


and  swords,  they  had  that  import  among  the  Protestants. 
The  shadow  of  the  sword  fell  on  all  churches  alike.  As 
no  church  could  escape  the  dominant  ideas  of  the  earlier 
time,  so  no  church  can  escape  the  happier  philosophy  of 
the  present  period.  Guns  for  one  means  guns  for  all ; 
and  now  toleration  for  one  means  toleration  for  all' 
Those  societies  that  are  now  arming  themselves  must  be 
composed  of  Protestants  and  Catholics  of  the  humblest 
mental  equipment.  It  is  full  time  for  the  higher  and 
calmer  classes  to  speak  out  in  favor  of  peace.  It  would 
be  a  disgrace  to  our  country  should  a  single  Catholic  or 
Protestant  be  slain  in  the  name  of  any  church  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Under  the  influence  of  our  schools,  literature, 
and  freedom,  fanaticisms  ought  to  disapper  from  religion 
and  permit  its  large  place  to  be  occupied  by  charity  and 
pity. 

Science  full  of  Cruelty. 

A  material  age  asks  us  to  study  the  strata  in  the  ground 
and  the  stars  in  the  sky;  asks  us  to  find  the  shores  of  old 
lakes  and  the  craters  of  extinct  volcanoes;  asks  us  to 
gather  the  bones  of  fossil  birds  and  fish,  and  store  up  a 
cabinet  of  shells,  out  of  w^hich  some  worms  died  a  million 
years  ago;  but  it  heeds  little  the  men  that  have  sailed  all 
stormy  seas  to  carry  love  and  light  to  their  fellow  pil- 
grims in  this  vale.  Science  is  often  full  of  cruelty.  It 
studies  the  little  things  of  the  universe,  counts  the  birds 
and  the  trees,  measures  the  footprints  of  the  great  mam- 
mals that  beat  around  in  the  forests  that  afterward  made 
our  coal,  weighs  the  fossil  tusks  and  teeth  of  extinct 
mastodons,  but  looks  coldly  toward  the  ship  that  carried 
St.  Paul  about,  and  toward  the  block  where  the  blood 
was  drawn  from  his  heart.  To  science  the  bark  canoe 
and  the  stone  tomahawk  of  the  savage  are  things  greater 


DAVID   SWING.  Ill 

and  more  charming  than  the  pleading  at  Mars  Hill  or  the 
movements  of  the  apostles, 

Xavier,  Duff,  Judson. 

There  is  one  kind  of  flesh  of  man,  another  flesh  of 
beasts,  another  of  birds;  and  so  there  is  one  glory  of  the 
sun,  and  another  glory  of  the  moon.  In  the  realm  of 
ideas,  there  is  a  glory  on  all  sides,  a  beautiful,  captivating 
glory;  but  the  glory  of  the  birds  and  the  fishes  is  one,  and 
the  glory  of  a  Xavier,  or  a  Duff,  or  a  Judson,  is  another. 
Dear  to  us  all,  both  as  a  study  and  as  an  inspiration, 
should  be  the  lives  of  men  who  helped  Christianity  and 
all  our  civilization  when  it  lay  helpless  in  the  midst  of 
savages.  When  the  storm  may  have  occurred  that 
changed  the  old  ocean  into  prairies,  or  which  transformed 
forests  into  beds  of  coal,  is  a  question  interesting  indeed, 
but  not  so  vital,  so  sublime,  as  the  study  of  that  awful 
tempest  of  destruction  and  creation  that  gave  us  Christ 
and  His  ardent  followers.  The  penitence  of  Magdalen, 
the  self-denial  of  the  poor  widow,  the  kindness  of  St. 
John,  are  stories  that  have  affected  the  human  race 
more  than  it  has  been  affected  by  botany,  chemistry,  and 
astronomy.  As  of  all  things  upon  earth,  the  sonl  is  the 
greatest,  as  "there  is  nothing  great  in  the  world  but  man, 
and  nothing  great  in  man  but  his  soul." 

The  Right  to  I^iberty. 

The  oldest  of  us  remember  when  a  man  who  urged  for 
the  freedom  of  the  slaves  was  only  a  babbler.  He  did 
not  know  about  what  he  was  talking,  for  all  nations  had 
held  slaves  ;  even  St.  Paul  had  advised  slaves  to  be 
obedient  to  their  masters  ;  and  the  Creator  himself  had 
made  an  inferior  race  that  it  might  do  the  drudgery  for  a 
higher  order  of  beings.     Thus  planted  in  the  midst  of 


112  ECHOES 

associations,  religious,  political  and  social,  the  American 
public  was  imper\aous  to  the  onsets  of  any  new  idea 
about  the  oneness  of  the  white  and  black  races  and  the 
rights  of  all  human  minds  to  liberty.  It  would  seem 
that  the  right  to  liberty  ought  to  have  been  self-evident 
to  a  Greek  or  Roman  or  Christian  age,  but  the  daily 
associations  of  society  have  always  been  a  Chinese  wall 
to  keep  in  what  was  in  and  to  keep  out  all  outside  philo- 
sophy. To  wear  away  this  wall  and  permit  the  old  to 
die  and  the  new  to  flourish  is  the  task  often  of  centuries. 
It  is  always  the  work  of  much  time. 

The  Moral  Quality  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion. 

Our  Decoration  Day  is  ennobled  by  the  moral  quality 
of  the  war.  There  is  in  our  poor  humanity  a  desire  to 
applaud  a  victor.  In  the  Spanish  bull  fights  the  victors 
are  applauded.  And  in  the  old  gladiatorial  shows  the 
man  was  applauded  when  he  stood  over  a  slain  anta- 
gonist. It  was  never  inquired  which  man  ought  to  have 
fallen.  But  as  the  mind  grows  it  does  not  wish  to  fling 
away  its  applause  upon  either  of  two  gladiators.  It 
pities  both,  and  would  gladly  disarm  both  and  send  each 
to  his  home,  where 

Were  his  young  barbarians  all  at  play, 
and  where  "their  Dacian  mother,"  war,  is  no  longer  a 
delightful  spectacle  for  enlightened  minds.  A  fresh 
battlefield  is  the  most  revolting  scene  upon  earth.  It  is 
wonderful  that  a  Julius  Caesar  or  a  Napoleon  could  look 
upon  his  murdered  soldiers  and  not  die  of  remorse  over 
suffering  and  death  so  aimless. 

We  I^earn  by  Sight. 

As  a  child  learns  language  first  through  the  eye,  by 
seeing  the  object  represented  by  the  word,  and,  indeed, 


DAVID   SWING.  113 

as  language  itself  began  in  the  names  of  things  that  had 
length,  breadth,  and  thickness,  so  Christianity  passes 
through  its  materialized  period  with  the  individual  or 
the  age,  and  then  swells  out  into  spirituality,  as  the  man 
or  the  time  changes  its  need. 

What  is  a  Statesman  ? 

What  is  a  statesman  ?  What  is  an  artist  ?  One  who 
can  know  and  produce  the  highest  beauty.  What  is  a 
goldsmith  ?  One  who  can  work  with  exquisite  touch  in 
gold.  What  is  a  statesman  ?  One  who  can  discover  and 
toil  for  the  highest  welfare  for  the  people  of  the  State. 
He  is  the  artist  of  the  nation.  His  eye  is  quick  to  mark 
what  is  noblest  and  his  hand  is  swift  to  reach  after  it,  his 
tongue  eloquent  to  utter  it.  Ernest  Renan  says:  "A 
saint  is  one  who  consecrates  his  life  to  a  grand  concep- 
tion and  who  thinks  all  else  useless."  But  this  is  a 
universal  definition.  Take  away  the  word  saint  and  in- 
sert the  word  statesman  and  the  truth  gleams  forth  that 
he  is  a  public  mind  which  consecrates  itself  to  a  grand 
conception  of  a  nation  and  scorns  all  humbler  thoughts. 
What  an  alarming  definition  1  It  excludes  a  great  multi- 
tude of  politicians.  Their  conception  of  vice,  crime,  right, 
wrong,  all  duty,  all  goodness  is  so  low  that  society  dare 
not  place  upon  their  temples  the  statesman's  crown. 
Their  minds  are  too  small  to  devise  good  things  ;  their 
hearts  are  too  insincere  to  be  eloquent. 

Whittier  Wept  I^ike  Jeremiah. 

It  is  seldom  the  fall  of  a  nation  is  so  complete  as  to 
leave  no  personal  exception.  As  when  recently  two 
steamers  struck  in  the  British  sea,  from  the  one  which 
sunk  instantly  only  one  man  arose.  That  one  was 
saved,  while  no  other  hand  or  face  ever  appeared  again, 


114  ECHOES 

SO  when  a  nation  is  sinking  in  depravity  there  is  always 
some  heart  which  rises  above  the  gulf  to  sing  over  and 
over  the  song  of  integrity  and  its  rewards.  When  the 
Roman  Catholic  public  had  lost  all  semblance  of  virtue, 
Savonarola  suddenly  appeared.  He  came  as  a  poor 
monk.  Diminut'.ve,  ugly,  awkward,  and  laughed  at  by 
the  brazen  sinners  of  the  time,  he  made  up  in  intellectual 
thunderings  all  he  lacked  in  beauty.  Thus  each  sink- 
ing ship  sends  upward  some  one  heart  to  live  and  beat. 
While  the  South  of  our  land  was  almost  wholly  wedded 
slavery  in  the  far  oflf  days,  some  master  in  Carolina 
would  go  north  with  all  his  slaves,  and  set  them  all  free 
and  give  them  land  in  some  free  State.  When  nearly  all 
literarj'  men  were  silent  about  slavery  Whittier  wept  like 
Jeremiah.  In  1833  or  1834  his  tears  for  the  slave  be- 
gan to  fall.  Thus  the  Hebrew  prophets  were  those 
exceptional  souls  which  were  too  divine  to  sink.'  They 
were  the  Cowpers  and  Whittiers  of  old  Judea.  They 
were  not  itinerant  musicians  nor  revivalists,  but  rather 
the  statesmen  who  were  not  willing  to  see  their  nation 
fall  a  victim  to  frauds  and  crimes. 

The  Greek  Race. 

Through  all  of  the  thousand  years  before  the  opening 
of  our  era,  the  most  intellectual  race  that  has  perhaps 
ever  lived,  had  built  up  the  Greek  language.  As  the 
coral  rocks  arose  in  the  Southern  ocean,  from  great 
depths  up  to  the  sunlight,  so  the  Greek  language,  from 
depths  unknown,  unsounded,  arose  until  it  came  to  the 
great  upper  sunlight  of  the  poets  and  orators.  Of  all  the 
marvels  of  history  the  Greek  nation  is  the  most  wonder- 
ful. The  seven  wonders  of  the  world  are  insignificant 
compared  with  that  nation  that  occupied  the  little  penin- 
sula.    Something  great  was  poured  into  the  Greek  soul 


DAVID   SWING.  115 

when  it  came  from  its  Creator.  It  did  nothing  upon  any- 
humble  scale.  Its  first  song  by  Homer  will  equal  all  the 
songs  that  will  follow  it.  A  nation  so  many-sided,  and 
so  wonderful  upon  each  side,  came  never  before  nor  else- 
where; wonderful  in  politics,  in  philosophy,  in  poetry, 
in  art,  in  heroism,  and  in  physical  beauty  and  develop- 
ment. All  this  greatness  w^as  treasured  up  in  language, 
the  image,  as  one  of  the  Greeks  said,  of  the  soul. 

Christianity  Flexible  in  Mode. 

Since,  then,  Christianity  must  be  flexible  in  its  method 
and  doctrine,  we  all  err  perhaps  in  overlooking  the  upper, 
educated  class,  and  in  devoting  our  whole  time  to  the 
effort  to  fit  religion  to  the  great  democratic  populace. 
The  genius  of  our  country  turns  the  attention  of  public- 
ists (and  the  preacher,  too,  is  a  publicist)  toward  what  is 
called  the  masses.  The  uprising  of  charity  as  a  virtue 
makes  us  seek  out  the  object  of  that  great  love.  It  has 
come  to  pass  that  we  weep  over  nothing  but  a  ragged 
orphan  or  a  slave.  The  pulpit  upbraids  the  rich,  and 
defies  the  educated,  and  ridicules  the  scientific,  and  fran- 
tically declares  for  the  outcast,  the  ignorant,  the  chimney- 
sweep and  the  news-boy. 

The  Divine  Summer  Time  of  the  People. 

May  no  citizen  limit  his  deeds  and  sentiments  by  the 
Constitution  of  our  Nation.  That  great  document  simply 
defines  the  few  tasks  of  a  central  power.  Does  the  Con- 
stitution say  anything  to  us  about  art  or  literature,  or 
love  or  beauty,  or  summer  or  spring?  Are  the  autumn 
leaves  there?  Does  it  contain  any  laughter  or  tears?  If 
it  excludes  religion  then  may  its  ice  all  melt  in  the  divine 
summertime  of  the  people. 


Il6  ECHOES 

Ideals  in  Art. 

Our  age  is  moved  deeply  by  the  study  of  ideals  in  art. 
Each  generation  is  amazed  at  its  own  progress.  In  the 
great  Field  Columbian  Museum  one  can  see  the  history 
of  many  an  idea ;  the  boat  idea;  beginning  at  three  logs 
bound  together  with  a  piece  of  bark  and  passing  on 
towards  the  ocean  palace ;  the  transportation  idea,  begin- 
ning with  a  strap  on  a  man's  forehead,  passing  on 
through  the  panniers  on  a  goat  or  a  donkey  and  reaching 
to  the  modem  express  train  ;  the  sculpture  idea,  moving 
from  some  stone  or  earthen  or  wooden  outlines  onward 
toward  the  angelic  forms  that  seem  about  to  live  and 
speak.  There  you  will  see  the  wooden  eagle  that 
marked  the  grave  of  some  Indian.  And  what  a  creature 
it  is  !  Nothing  but  the  infinite  kindness  of  civilization 
could  persuade  us  to  call  it  a  bird  of  any  known  species. 
And  yet  perhaps  the  Indian  when  dying  was  happy  that 
such  a  wooden  bird  was  to  stand  on  his  grave  and  keep 
his  memory  green.  Into  our  age  so  full  of  new  and 
grand  conceptions  in  art  there  must  come  the  marching 
ideals  of  human  life.  Man  is  moving  through  a  redemp- 
tive world.  All  lips  should  sing  each  day  the  song  of 
the  old  harpist,  ' '  Who  Redeemeth  Thy  Life  from 
Destruction. ' '  What  our  age  needs  is  a  rapid  advance  of 
thef  ideals  of  life.  A  Catholic  priest  who  has  spent 
thirty  years  in  the  temperance  cause  said  ' '  the  saloon  is 
the  greatest  enemy  that  Rome  has  left  in  the  world  :  that 
the  criticisms  we  Protestants  make  of  Rome's  dogmas 
were  harmless  compared  with  the  ruin  of  mind  and  soul 
wrought  by  the  saloon  and  its  defenders."  No  one  will 
deny  the  truth  of  the  priest's  complaint,  and  all  are  glad 
to  mark  the  new  effort  of  the  Romanists  to  set  up  new 
ideas.     Protestants  should  not,  cannot,  hate  a   Catholic  ; 


DAVID    SWIXG.  117 

but  all  good  citizens  must  cherish  little  regard  for  any 
one  who  has  not  yet  got  ten  beyond  the  saloon  idea. 

Seneca  and  George  Fox. 

Seneca  was  to  the  Roman  Empire  what  George  Fox 
was  to  England,  or  what  Franklin  was  to  the  colonies. 
Seneca  taught  the  highest  precepts  of  his  day,  and  be- 
cause he  was  such  a  moralist  he  was  appointed  tutor  of 
the  young  Nero.  The  pupil  betrayed  the  weakness  of 
his  guide.  When  Nero  came  to  power,  his  guardian,  Sen- 
eca, became  the  low  flatterer  of  the  king,  and  smiled  at  all 
the  royal  vices.  He  even  went  further  and  suggested  to 
Nero  the  murder  of  a  younger  brother  ;  and  when  Nero 
murdered  his  mother,  Seneca  wrote  a  letter  to  sanction 
and  explain  the  crime.  Add  to  these  enormities  the  fact 
that  Seneca  had  himself  been  banished  for  a  crime  that 
did  not  happen  to  please  the  powers  over  him,  and  you 
have  a  picture  of  Roman  morals  as  seen  even  in  the 
best  of  Roman  men.  Seneca  himself  confesses  that  he 
was  a  lover  of  virtue,  but  not  virtuous ;  not  a  philoso- 
pher, but  a  student  of  philosophy.  "I  am  occupied  with 
the  study  of  the  vices,  but  all  I  require  of  myself  is,  not 
to  be  equal  to  the  be£t,  but  only  to  be  better  than  the  bad." 

Why  We  I^ove  the  Violets. 

In  India  there  are  vast  valleys  devoted  wholly  to  the 
growth  of  roses.  Twent}'  thousand  blossoms  will  make 
an  ounce  of  rose  attar.  Worthy  fields,  but  who  loves  to 
think  of  a  great  planet  made  by  an  almighty  hand  for 
the  purpose  of  raising  reasons  for  not  living  an  honest  or 
humane  life.  The  earth  cannot  be  reconciled  to  God  by 
finely  spun  apologies,  but  only  by  its  use  of  absolute 
and  eternal  goodness.  This  fact  has  led  some  great 
thinkers  to  argue  that  the  true  mind  need  not  be  moved 


Il8  ECHOES 

by  either  heaven  or  hell,  but  by  the  attractions  of  the 
right  in  its  own  pure  self.  The  mind  should  be  right 
and  loving,  because  only  thus  can  it  be  a  true  mind. 
We  love  a  springtime  day  not  because  of  heaven  or  hell, 
but  because  of  its  own  exquisite  contents.  Thus  man 
should  love  the  right  and  the  benevolent  because  they 
are  beautiful  and  because  he  is  man.  You  do  not 
love  the  spring  violets  because  of  some  hope  or  fear,  but 
because  thej^  and  you  were  made  for  such  a  friendship 
whether  life  be  for  a  few  days  or  for  a  million  years. 
Thus  talk  manj-^  of  the  noblest  of  earth,  but  such  a  theory 
is  rendered  at  least  unnecessary  by  the  simple  fact  that 
rewards  will  come  whether  they  are  a  motive  or  not. 
They  who  seek  the  absolute  goodness  cannot  escape 
happiness;  their  character  makes  it. 

Pagan  Gods  Only  Dreams. 

None  of  the  great  classic  or  Asiatic  writters  pretend  to 
have  seen  the  great  super-human  ideas  in  whose  name 
they  worshiped.  Venus,  Juno,  Jupiter,  Prometheus, 
Osis,  Osiris,  were  only  long-continued  dreams  of  the 
generations.  They  were  like  the  toy-bringing  god  of 
our  Christmas,  only  the  incarnation  of  the  world' s  wish 
and  infant  thought.  Once  the  world  was  peopled  by  only 
a  race  of  infants.  As  our  children  believe  in  the  Christ- 
mas god,  the  ancients  believed  in  the  group  upon 
Olympus  gathered  about  an  ambrosial  feast. 

What  Does  This  Babbler  Say  ? 

Many  of  the  ideas  which  are  offered  to  us  are  false 
and  ought  never  to  be  entertained,  but  when  true  ones 
come  along,  if  they  are  new,  they  will  come  very  slowly 
into  the  inmost  chambers  of  the  mind.  The  heart  feels 
disposed  to  cry  out:     "What   does  this   babbler  say? 


DAVID   SWING.  119 

He  seems  to  have  some  new  gods."  Our  life  is  so  well 
intrenched  in  truth  that  whoever  contradicts  us  is 
simply  a  babbler.  He  comes  with  a  lot  of  new  gods  just 
as  though  we  could  get  new  gods  as  we  get  clothing  or 
new  sandals  !  Away  with  such  a  fellow  from  the  earth  ! 
And  yet  time  softens  the  heart  and  takes  away  all  this 
self-conceit.  Men  die  leaning  upon  the  bosom  of  the 
teacher  whom  once  they  would  have  crucified.  Whom 
they  once  crucified  all  the  world  now  admires  and  many 
love.  The  stranger  has  become  well  known.  Time 
has  transformed  strangeness  into  friendship.  Familiar 
with  his  face  the  world  embraces  now  the  one  whom 
Trojan  and  Pliny  could  not  endure.  He  is  a  stranger 
no  longer.  He  is  a  member  of  the  vast  modern  family  ; 
an  old-time  friend. 

Christ  the  Revelation  of  a  New  God. 
Slowly,  indeed,  comes  the  redemption  of  the  human 
race,  but,  notwithstanding  this  painful  halting,  looking 
back  we  behold  Christ  to  be  the  turning  point  in  the 
history  of  our  earth.  He  was  the  revelation  of  a  new 
God  ;  the  One  who  proves  to  be  the  true  God,  the  only 
Lord  and  Father  of  us  all.  He  was  the  revelation  of  a 
morals  that  makes  the  sages  of  old  hang  their  heads  in 
humility.  He  did  not,  like  Seneca,  teach  virtue  with- 
out being  viruous,  nor  was  he  content  by  being  worse 
than  the  best,  but  better  than  the  worst.  All  compro- 
mising, all  comparative  goodness,  terminated  at  Naza- 
reth. A  sinful  thought  became  a  stain  upon  the  soul, 
and  the  enmity  that  said,  "Thou  fool,"  became  a  con- 
fessed ruin  or  sorrow  in  that  heart. 

"Blue"   and    "Gray." 

Our  Decoration  Day  does  not  come  with  the  shout  that 
once  shook  the  Roman  colosseum  because  some  one  had 


I20  ECHOES 

triumphed  and  some  one  had  died  :  but  it  comes  with  a 
gladness  that  in  all  parts  or  the  great  Republic  false 
principles  perished  and  new  love  and  new  right  came 
for  millions  of  persons  and  for  a  long  vista  of  years.  We 
do  not  bring  our  flowers  to  celebrate  simply  a  deed  in 
which  a  Grant  triumphed  and  a  Lee  fell,  but  we  come  to 
bless  the  soldiers  that  helped  liberty  to  touch  all  door-sills, 
the  soldiers  that  helped  Georgia  and  Mississippi  to  be- 
come the  loving  friends  of  New  York  and  Illinois  ;  we 
come  to  bless  the  soldiers  that  baptised  the  scattered 
States  into  one  freedom  and  one  love.  The  entire  na- 
tion esteems  the  names  of  Lee  and  Stonewall  Jackson. 
This  May  Day  comes  with  pity  for  all  the  dead  and  liv- 
ing soldiers ;  but  with  an  inexeprssible  joy  that  from 
these  battlefields  came  the  divinest  principles  for  which 
men  can  live  their  years  in  this  world.  The  words 
"friend"  and  "foe,"  'North"  and  "South,"  "Blue"  and 
"Graj'^"  are  drowned  out  by  the  voice  of  the  millions 
welcoming  a  full  liberty  and  justice.  Time  has  furled 
the  flags,  thirty  years  have  silenced  the  guns  and  have 
silenced  the  passions  that  once  flamed  in  all  hearts  ;  thirty 
years  have  taken  away  all  boasting  over  fallen  foes  ;  but 
the  same  flight  of  time  makes  only  the  more  glorious 
the  country  that  has  no  dividing  line  and  the  nation 
that  has  no  slave.  Time  silences  discord  and  exalts 
principles. 

God's  Mercy  Slow. 

The  works  of  religion,  as  indeed  all  the  works  of  hu- 
man progress,  reach  out  like  the  formation  of  the  glaciers 
or  the  deltas,  over  long  periods.  It  saddens  the  human 
heart  and  baffles  the  intellect  to  think  of  the  slowness  of 
God's  mercy  toward  his  children. 


DAVID  SWING.  lil 

The  Old  Gods  are  Dumb. 

The  Roman  religion  crumbled  rapidly.  Porphyry, 
who  wrote  almost  a  score  of  books  to  stay  the  progress 
of  Christianity,  complained  bitterly  that  under  the  sound 
of  the  Gospel  the  old  gods  had  become  dumb.  This 
lament  of  a  disappointed  pagan,  Milton  elaborated  into 
verse  : 

The  oracles  are  dumb  ; 
Nor  voice  nor  hideous  hum, 
Runs  through  the  arched  roof  in  words  deceiving. 
Apollo  from  his  shrine 
No  longer  can  divine. 
With  hollow  shriek  the  steep  of  Delphos  leaving 

No  trance  or  breathed  spell 
Inspire  the  pale-eyed  priest  from  his  pro'phetic  cell. 
The  lonel}'  mountains  o'er    • 
And  the  resounding  shore, 
A  voice  of  weeping  heard,  and  loud  lament ; 
From  haunted  spring  and  dale, 
Edged  with  poplar  pale, 
The  parting  Genius  is  with  sighing  sent ; 

With  flower-inwoven  tresses  torn, 
The  nymphs  in  twilight  shade  of  tangled  thicket 
murn. 

The  Future  hss  no  Potency. 

When,  after  an  absence  of  tvvent)'  years,  you  visit  thp 
old  homestead  and  find  the  old  orchard  gone,  and  the.old 
house  dismanteled,  its  door-side  moss-covered,  you  say, 
hastily,  "What  changes  time  has  wrought!"  But  it 
was  the  agencies  acting  in  time,  the  daily  storms,  the 
frosts,  the  winds,  the  worm,  that  slowly  transformea  the 
old  home  into  decay.     Thus  the  Future  has  no  potency. 


122  ECHOES 

The  present  is  working  all  sad  changes,  and  the  future  is 
only  the  point  at  which  the  heart  must  break.  When 
hope  cheers  the  present,  and  acts  as  an  inspiration  to  its 
toil  and  goodness,  then  hope  is  a  good  angel;  but  the 
moment  hope  acts  as  an  opiate  upon  the  present,  it 
becomes  a  poison  of  the  soul.  Rather  than  worship 
her,  one  would  better  deify  the  present  and  come  each 
morning  with  new  homage.  "Now,"  is  an  idea  that 
should  be  more  deeply  studied  by  those  capable  of  any 
usefulness.  The  money-makers  alone  have  fathomed  its 
depths.  The}'  alone  "never  put  off  till  to-morrow  what 
can  be  done  to-day."  But  the  moralists,  and  religionists, 
and  possible  benefactors,  have  not  studied  enough  the 
little  word.  All  the  good  ideas  of  earth,  even  the  invita- 
tions of  Jesus  Christ,  are  postponed,  and  postponed  until 
these  great  '  'hopes  deferred  make  the  public  heart  sick. ' ' 

From  Darkness  to  I<ight. 
At  the  touch  of  this  new  Savior,  the  principles  of  law 
underwent  great  change,  and  slowly  passed  from  dark- 
ness to  light.  Christ  was  especially  a  great  crisis  in  the 
history  of  the  soul.  The  body  became  the  casket,  the 
soul  the  gem.  The  soul  being  thus  thrown  forward,  its 
home  had  to  be  enlarged,  and  its  career  extended. 

The  Impressionist  School  of  Art. 
We  do  not  yet  know  whether  the  style  of  the  impres- 
sionist is  to  be  some  great  truth  in  the  art  of  the  painter, 
or  is  to  be  only  one  of  the  many  forms  of  delineating 
nature.  Man  has  pictures  in  black  and  white;  pictures 
in  steel;  pictures  in  many  tints  like  those  of  Raphael  and 
Meissonier.  When  the  impressionist  comes  with  only 
two  or  three  colors,  and  with  certain  views  of  back- 
ground, and  a  central  meaning,  it  may  be  he  comes  with 


DAVID  SWING.  123 

some  simple  addition  to  the  painter's  kingdom,  but  not 
in  the  name  of  any  new  age.  That  was  a  new  era  that 
expelled  all  fiends  and  all  horrors  from  the  canvas  and 
depicted  for  us  all  the  blessed  faces  of  humanity  and  all 
the  rich  scenery  of  nature.  Old  art  loved  to  paint  St. 
Sebastian  with  his  bosom  full  of  arrows,  but  the  new  era 
passes  by  such  subjects  and  would  rather  draw  a  land- 
scape, or  pin  blossoms  on  a  human  heart.  Thus  a  new 
age  differs  from  a  new  thought.  The  thought  may  be 
only  a  suggestion,  while  a  new  age  is  the  march  of  great 
principles. 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  Needed. 

Into  what  an  empire  did  the  son  of  man  come  !  There 
was  a  vast  state,  that  represented  the  world,  to  be 
reformed  ;  there  was  a  marvelous  language  to  be  the 
vehicle  of  the  new  truth  ;  there  was  the  decay  the  Roman 
religous  faith  ;  there  was  a  decadence  of  political  and 
aesthetic  forms  of  thought :  there  was  a  mental  vitality 
remaining  for  new  guidance  ;  there  was  a  condition  of 
morals  that  demanded  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  there 
was  a  dark  night  setting  in  that  appealed  loudly  for  the 
mercy  of  Heaven.  Two  nations,  the  greatest  that  had 
come  from  the  mind  of  man — the  Greek  that  dazzles  the 
world  yet  with  the  memory  of  its  poetry  and  art,  and 
philosophy  and  oratory  ;  the  Roman  with  its  law,  and 
military  skill,  and  ambition,  and  with  its  unrivaled 
temples  and  palaces — had  been  merged  into  one,  and 
with  all  their  combined  riches  of  mind  and  soul  were 
descending  to  ruin  together. 

The  Age  Treats  us  all  Alike. 

That  great  king  which  we  call  "The  Age"  treats 
us  all  alike.      As  the  sunshine  and  the  rain   fall  on 


i^4 


ECHOES 


the  just  and  the  unjust,  so  the  age  moves  along  in  a  great 
breadth  and  overlooks  nothing.  It  has  no  contempt  for 
the  little  and  no  fear  of  the  great.  It  pauses  at  the  shop 
of  the  carpenter  and  at  the  library  of  the  statesman,  and 
says  to  both  these  workmen  :  "  You  would  better  intro- 
duce some  new  material  and  some  new  tools." 

Benevolence  Should  Not  be  Delayed. 

There  are  colleges  about  this  city  that  have  been 
waiting  twenty  years  for  the  good  intentions  of  rich  men 
to  ripen.  There  are  many  forms  of  public  beneficence 
that  have  been  reposing  in  manascript  for  a  quarter  of  a 
centur>',  waiting  for  the  future  to  evolve  for  them  a 
reality  from  the  generous  and  promising  heart.  But  the 
real  truth  is,  there  is  nothing  in  the  morrow  that  was 
not  in  the  yesterday,  and  one  by  one  the.se  designing, 
promising  hearts,  have  fallen  asleep  without  having 
come  up  to  the  golden  days  when  benevolence  would  be 
a  pleasure  and  money  would  no  longer  enslave  the  soul. 

Woman  Fifty  Years  Ago. 

Fifty  years  ago  she  came  as  a  babbler.  We  can  look 
back  and  can  say  :  She  was  a  babbler,  but  only  because 
we  did  not  know  eloquence  when  we  heard  it.  In  those 
days  the  majority  of  us  thought  that  eloquence  was  the 
voice  of  a  white  man  who  was  running  for  Congress. 
We  had  no  idea  that  it  could  be  contained  in  the  dialect 
of  a  negro  or  in  the  soft  tones  of  a  woman.  All  these 
old  follies  are  dying.  We  are  on  the  margin  of  a  period 
when  the  terms  man  and  woman  will  be  dispaced  b}'  the 
word  "humanity."  Woman's  Building  was  once  a 
slave  pen.  It  afterwards  became  a  tinseled  parlor.  It 
will  be  seen  every  year  in  greater  proportions.     A  hun- 


DAVID   SWING.  125 

dred  years  hence  it  will  not  be  designated  as  Woman's 
Building  ;  it  will  be  called  the  Temple  of  Humanity.  It 
will  contain  the  human  race. 

Religion  a  Science  of  Generalities. 

lyittle  of  the  world's  religious  turmoil  arose  around 
Christ.  But  from  the  human  mind,  full  of  darkness  and 
vanity — a  sad  combination — rolled  the  smoke  and  fire,  as 
from  an  infernal  Vesuvius,  that  have  buried  in  ashes 
and  death  cities  and  homes  which  under  Christ  alone 
would  have  been  Edens  of  happiness.  Above  all  things 
religion  is  a  science  of  generalities.  It  lies  broad  and 
deep  like  the  expanse  of  heaven,  and  like  the  same 
heaven,  will  utter  few  particulars.  Astronomers  tell  us 
Saturn  lies  within  beautiful  rings,  and  that  Jupiter  has 
equal  day  and  night,  and  that  one  season  runs  through 
all  its  year  ;  but  here  these  wise  men  pause.  Whether 
beings  like  men  dwell  there,  and  gather  wild  flowers, 
and  hear  bird  songs  in  eternal  spring,  and  whether  they 
sail  ships  upon  oceans  that  know  no  wild  storm,  they 
are  all  silent  as  those  awful  depths.  Religion  surpasses 
even  astronomy  in  the  breadth  and  vagueness  of  its 
generalizations.  The  theologians,  misconceiving  its 
genius,  have  loaded  it  down  with  particulars  from 
which  it  will  now  take  them  all  their  remaining  life  to 
retract. 

Give  Generously!    Give  Now. 

It  would  not  be  beyond  the  truth  were  I  to  say  that 
there  are  a  thousand  persons  in  this  city  who  intend  to 
bless  mankind  by  acts  of  benevolence.  When  a  little 
more  gold  has  been  gathered,  and  a  few  more  gray  hairs 
have  come,  and  the  dear  future  shall  have  come  a  little 
nearer,  they  are  going  to  found  asylums,  and  art-galleries, 


126  ECHOES 

and  libraries,  and  colleges,  and  bursting  the  chains  of 
self,  love  the  large  suffering  world.  These  intentions  are 
the  most  solemn  and  noble  of  their  hearts.  Nearly  every 
clergyman  has  conversed  with  these  good  men,  and  can 
bear  witness  to  their  sincerity.  These  are  good  people 
at  heart.  But  we  come,  now,  to  the  defect  in  their 
scheme — a  defect  that  hides  itself,  and,  like  Satan,  will 
deceive  the  verj^  elect.  The  calamity  of  these  well  wish- 
ing hearts,  and  the  calamitj'  of  the  long- waiting  public  is 
simply  this,  that  there  is  no  such  future  any  where  as 
that  one  pictured  in  the  dream  of  these  benevolent  men. 
The  day  when  they  shall  feel  that  they  have  heaped  up 
enough  of  gold ;  the  day  when  they  will  be  willing  to 
part  with  it ;  the  day  when  they  will  love  the  poor  com- 
munity, and  will  desire  to  lay  down  great  oflferings  at  its 
feet,  and  when  the  future  so  long  dreamed  of  will  come 
down  in  golden  colors  out  of  the  sk}^,  will  never  come. 

Heroism  the  Beauty  of  the  Soul. 

Heroism  is  indeed  the  beautiful  in  the  sonl.  It  is  the 
old  image  of  God  coming  to  the  surface  again  as 
when  in  scraping  ofif  a  dingy  wall  in  Florence  the 
workmen  came  upon  the  portrait  of  Dante.  Often 
there  come  men  who  throw  aside  the  rags  of  self, 
the  tattered  vestments  of  beggars,  and  let  out  the 
image  of  God  within.  Into  no  institution  of  man, 
into  no  f)hilosophy,  into  no  school  of  art,  has  there 
entered  such  a  band  of  heroes,  as  is  seen  filing  down  into 
this  book  of  God.  It  seems  perfectly  '  wonderful  that 
each  page  of  the  Christian's  book  should  have  been  com- 
posed by  one  of  these  children  of  heroism.  The  Bible  is 
a  Westminster  Abbey,  where  none  but  the  great  sleep. 
There  are  two  painful  exceptions,  David  and  Solomon. 


DAVID   SWING.  127 

These  are  the  only  two  characters  of  the  sacred  group  that 
pass  before  us  destitute  of  any  beauty  that  need  long 
detain  us.  David  and  Solomon  are  might\^  ruins  lyin^ 
in  the  midst  of  the  Bible.  In  them  self  was  greater  than 
society.  Either  one  of  them  would  rather  overthrow  all 
the  laws  of  man  than  confess  that  self  must  have  bound- 
aries of  passion  or  ambition. 

I/Uther  a  Result  of  the  Classic  Universities. 
It  was  the  progress  of  the  Catholics  that  made  Protes- 
tantism possible.  lyUther  was  a  result  of  the  classic  uni- 
versities Romanism  had  founded.  In  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries  a  great  reaction  set  in  against  the  litera- 
ture composed  of  the  miraculous  experiences  of  monks  and 
holy  women,  and,  called  back  by  the  new  voices,  the  classic 
style  of  thought  began  to  return.  While  Luther  was 
giving  this  new  awakening,  a  religious  direction  in  Italy 
the  classic  movement  was  simply  intellectual  and  aesthetic. 
When  Pope  Paul  III.  made  a  visit  in  1543  to  the  old  uni- 
versity of  Ferrara,  he  was  treated  to  a  play  from  Terrence 
— a  comedy  called  "The  Brothers."  He  also  found  there 
a  young  woman  lecturing  upon  Cicero.  The  religion  of 
the  iiniversity  had  become  a  pure  Deism.  The  classics 
had  become  so  popular  that  they  excluded  the  church  and 
amounted  to  almost  a  passion.  Luther  was  only  a  result 
of  the  new  Catholics.  If  the  Catholics  were  affected  by 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  they  can  be  affected 
by  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries.  It  is  not 
with  them  a  matter  of  choice;  it  is  a  matter  of  destiny. 

The  World  When  Christ  Appeared. 

The  "  golden  age  "  of  Augustus  ended  before  the  vSon 
of  Man  appeared.  Streaks  of  the  sunset  were  still  upon 
the  sky,  but  the  great  day  of  literature  had  passed,  and 


128  ECHOES 

night  was  coming  rapidly  over  the  most  impressive 
country  and  nation  which  the  world  ever  saw.  Only  for 
a  moment  recall  those  names  so  familiar  to  us  all,  and  as 
loved  as  familiar.  Julius  Caesar,  the  writer  and  orator, 
had  been  slain  forty-four  years  before  our  era  began. 
Cicero  was  murdered  a  few  years  after  the  great  Caesar 
fell.  Virgil  died  nineteen  years  before  Christ  came. 
Horace  was  in  his  grave  forty  years  before  Christ  began 
to  teach  mankind.  Sallust  had  been  dead  thirty-four 
years  before  the  Child  was  born  in  the  manger.  Christ 
was  only  eighteen  years  old,  was  still  an  unknown  car- 
penter, when  Livy  died.  Publius  Syrius,  Catullus, 
Terence,  all,  all  these  gifted  children  of  philosophy  and 
song  had  gone  to  sleep  long  before  the  music  of  Bethle- 
hem came  to  the  ear  of  the  shepherds.  Except  Tacitus 
and  Pliny,  no  great  name  ever  passed  over  the  line  that 
divided  the  pagan  and  Christian  periods.  Not  a  single 
great  orator  or  artist,  poet  or  statesman,  was  remaining 
upon  the  Roman  or  Greek  world  when  our  Lord 
appeared. 

I/ong  Rooted  Ills  "Vanish  Slowly. 

The  ills  of  a  city  will  not  all  vanish  when  it  shall 
become  well  governed,  A  most  perfect  and  most  honest 
government  will  not  bring  a  perfect  salvation,  for  intem- 
perance and  idleness  and  extravagance  will  remain,  and 
those  two  great  forces  called  labor  and  capital  will 
still  be  here.  They  are  both  one,  only  capital  is  larger 
than  labor.  When  a  man's  labor  is  worth  $600  a  year, 
he  is  worth  several  thousand  dollars.  It  would  take 
quite  a  sum  invested  at  six  per  cent,  to  equal  such  a  man. 
Capital  is  condensed  labor,  labor  crowded  into  a  package 
of  bills  or  gold  like  the  air  crowded  into  a  Westinghouse 
cylinder,     The  living  laborer  sets  free  the  condensed 


DAVID   SWING.  129 

labor  and  makes  it  assume  the  form  of  some  external 
object.  Both  are  one  only  capital  is  the  larger.  They 
will  draw  nearer  to  each  other  as  the  world  advances  in 
intellect  and  goodness. 

Mr.  Childs  an  Example. 

In  this  widening  of  human  ideals  a  large  part  of  the 
community  has  outgrown  the  law  of  demand  and  supply. 
The  Rossis  and  Ricardos  who  stated  that  law  so  clearly 
a  hundred  years  ago  were  not  thinking  of  the  welfare  of 
the  workingman,  but  only  the  causes  of  a  price.  The 
study  and  the  law  were  cold  blooded.  A  working  man 
received  fifty  cents  a  day  or  less  because  the  need  was  not 
great  and  the  workingmen  were  numerous.  In  our  age 
there  is  a  vast  multitude  of  employers  who  pay  something 
to  a  man  because  he  is  a  human  being.  An  element 
undreamed  of  by  the  last  century  enters  in  the  wages 
of  to-day.  Mr.  Childs  did  not  regard  the  law  of  demand 
and  supply.  His  heart  made  some  new  laws,  aud  he 
paid  as  much  to  the  human  being  as  he  did  to  the  trade 
of  the  man.  He  could  have  secured  labor  at  a  low 
market  price,  but  he  hated  the  calculations  of  the  last 
century  and  paid  men  what  pleased  his  own  benevolence. 
Few  of  you  make  any  effort  to  secure  help  at  the  lowest 
rates.  The  human  being,  man,  woman  or  boy,  steps  in 
and  draws  a  few  additional  pennies.  The  sweat  shops 
are  places  where  love  has  not  yet  come.  There  the  law 
of  demand  and  supply  works  in  all  its  old-time  barbarity. 

We  Must  be  Wholly  Free ! 

The  redeeming  process  must  go  forward  until  we  are 
wholly  free.  It  was  once  enough  for  a  man  if  he  were  a 
Presbyterian  or  a  Catholic,  but  such  a  goal  is  no  longer 
adequate.     This   kind  of  person  must  now  add  to   his 


I30 


ECHOES 


name  a  new  group  of  virtues.  He  must  be  intelligent, 
temperate,  just,  kind,  lofty.  The  human  beauties  have 
grown  more  rapidly  than  the  beauties  of  art  have 
advanced.  It  is  seen  how  music  has  run  from  the  old 
monotony  of  the  Hebrews  and  Greeks  to  the  wonderful 
compositions  of  the  Italians  and  Germans.  The  modern 
soul  would  almost  die  under  the  old  music.  It  would 
not  be  high  enough,  nor  low  enough,  nor  wide  enough, 
nor  sweet  enough.  But  morals  have  advanced  by  the 
same  path,  and  yet  this  city,  encompassed  and  inspired 
by  ideals  many  and  great,  permits  itself  to  be  governed 
by  the  abandoned  classes.  It  is  as  though  the  orator, 
Daniel  Webster,  had  asked  some  African  ape  to  speak  in 
his  stead ;  it  is  as  though  Jennie  Lind  had  asked  some 
steam  foghorn  to  sing  her  part.  When  from  the  splendor 
of  this  city,  from  its  high  people,  from  its  intelligent 
and  sunny  homes,  from  its  churches,  from  its  immortal 
summer  of  1893,  one  passes  to  the  centralized  govern- 
ment the  heart  cries  out :  Alas,  Jennie  Lind,  why  did 
you  suppose  that  a  fog-horn  could  take  your  place  and 
sing  for  us  that  mighty  song :  "I  Know  that  My 
Redeemer  Liveth."  In  the  midst  of  the  discord  it  is 
difficult  to  believe  that  a  redeemer  lives. 

^arth  the  Mother  Home  of  the  Race  For 
Thousands  of  Years. 

The  lawyers,  the  statesmen,  the  patriots,  the  philan- 
thropists, all  demand  a  religion  that  shall  blend  with 
these  days  of  earth,  and  help  it  in  its  liberty,  in  its  law, 
in  its  arts,  its  letters,  its  honors,  its  pleasures.  These 
noble  ones  believe  in  immortality,  but  they  believe  that 
a  good  earth  is  the  best  stepping  stone  to  Heaven.  They 
believe  God  loved  earth,  or  He  would  not  have  made  it 
and  caused  to  pass  over  it  such  a  procession  of  souls. 


DAVID   SWING.  131 

They  believe  that  the  children  of  this  world  will  be 
called  one  by  one  to  eternity,  but  they  believe  that  for 
thousands  of  years  yet  the  earth  will  remain  the  arena  of 
human  life,  and  that  as  a  mother  lovingly  provides  for 
her  children,  though  she  may  be  on  the  morrow  to  leave 
them  forever,  so  all  noble  souls  will  toil  for  mankind 
present  and  to  come,  of  the  persecutions  and  desolations 
of  the  former  centuries,  where  a  million  people  went 
hungrj'  and  barefoot  that  one  king  or  one  prince  might 
be  arrayed  in  splendor  ;  out  of  the  persecutions  that  made 
religion  mean  martyrdom — came  a  melancholy  which  we 
pity  and  forgive.  But  here  our  charity  terminates,  and 
now  we  behold  a  period  when  a  new  world  lying  before 
the  Church  asks  it  to  put  aside  its  indifference  and  gird 
itself  for  the  welfare  of  this  great  encapment  on  the 
shores  of  time. 

Words  are  Embalmed  Ideas. 

Words  are  the  embalmed  ideas  of  the  long  yesterday. 
Each  separate  word  is  a  truth.  When,  therefore,  a 
genius  like  old  Job  is  born  into  the  world,  and  finds 
about  him  only  the  narrow  Hebrew  tongue,  he  enters 
upon  a  long  imprisonment,  unconscious,  indeed,  but  real- 
He  can  utter  some  sublime  things,  but  his  mind  is  lim- 
ited, like  the  soul  of  the  Swiss  child  born  only  in  the 
mountains.  '  When  a  genius  like  Goothe  or  Webster  is 
born  into  such  a  universe  of  words  as  is  seen  in  the 
German  or  English,  it  is  the  soul's  own  fault  or  sin  if  it 
does  not  move  out  freely  and  grandly  toward  the  waiting 
human  race.  It  is  said  of  Dante  that  he  was  compelled 
to  make  the  Italian  language  while  he  made  his  song ; 
that  he  was  compelled  to  ransack  all  the  domain  of 
Italian  thought  in  order  to  find  words  and  inflections 
which   he   might  use   and  that   could   be  woven    into 


132 


ECHOES 


peetic  melody.  It  is  beautifully  said  that  before  he  could 
sing  his  music  he  was  compelled  first  to  make  a  harp. 
What  a  wonderful  inheritence,  then,  must  belong  to  each 
young  mind  in  this  country,  who  at  birth  falls  heir  to  one 
of  the  three  great  tongues,  French,  English  or.  Ger- 
man. 

The  Street  Called    "By-and-By." 

Some  of  the  the  most  biting  aphorisms  of  the  great 
writers  have  been  uttered  against  the  spirit  of  delay  that 
broods  over  the  soul.  One  says,  "We  pass  our  life  in 
deliberation,  and  die  in  it."  "Delays  have  dangerous 
ends,"  says  Shakespeare.  "To-morrow  is  a  satire  on 
to-day,"  said  Young.  But  Cerx'^antes  states  well  the 
folly  of  feeding  eternally  On  hope.  He  saj-s  :  "  By  the 
street  called  By-and-by,  j^ou  reach  a  house  called  Never." 
Thus  in  the  literature  of  all  ages,  from  the  Bible  to  the 
page  of  the  Spaniard,  you  find  that  mankind  early 
learned  the  imposition  that  expectation  was  playing  upon 
it,  and  sought  out  biting  words  to  warn  us  against  its 
snare.  The  great  mission  of  hope  is  to  inspire  the  pres 
ent.  The  dazzling  glor}-  of  the  future  is  only  to  make 
the  present  all  light  around  the  foot.  But  if  man  sits 
down  and  waits  till  he  shall  come  to  the  dazzling 
morrow,  the  morrow  at  once  becomes  dark  ;  it  takes  back 
every  banner  of  light,  because  the  gazing  soul  has  not 
read  aright  its  significance. 

The  Pulpit  Should  Adorn  the  Battlefield. 

The  church  should  bless  the  soldiers  for  having  by 
their  blood  atoned  for  the  cowardice  of  the  sanctuary. 
The  pulpit  should  adorn  the  battlefields  that  brought 
to  them  the  unsullied  Christ  of  Nazareth  and  Calvary. 
In    the    processions    of   this  day    the    church    should 


DAVID   SWING.  ■  133 

march  as  a  penitent  full  of  regress  that  wearing  the 
name  of  Jesus  it  made  such  a  poor  estimate  of  the 
rights  of  man.  Had  the  church  done  its  moral  duty  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  the  nineteenth 
would  have  escaped  the  awful  war  of  brother  against 
brother,  South  against  North.  When  a  religion  espouses 
a  great  wrong,  then  the  sword  and  the  battlefield  must 
come.     Violence  must  come  when  love  has  failed. 

Decoration  Dajj  a  Perpetual  Institution. 

But  while  we  meditate  aud  stand  with  hands  full  of 
memorial  wreaths,  the  scene  expands,  the  holy  ground 
widens  from  State  to  State,  from  mountain  to  prairie,  and 
from  ocean  to  lake  and  river,  until  at  last  the  heart  bows 
down  in  grief  over  the  silent  forms  of  300,000  men.  They 
gave  up  life  that  we  might  live  more  nobly.  Of  this 
number  not  many  fell  in  instant  death.  Nearly  all  went 
out  by  the  gate  of  long  agony,  asking  help  that  could  not 
come,  and  thinking  of  the  loved  ones  they  would  never 
see  again.  And  all  this  suffering,  all  this  dying  was 
for  us  who  to-day  are  speaking  the  language  and  taking 
the  footsteps  and  .seeing  all  the  scenes  and  joys  in  the 
sunshine  of  life !  Decoration  Day  ought  to  come  back  as 
long  as  our  mind  can  study  political  principles,  and  as 
long  as  our  heart  can  appreciate  the  self-denial  of  a  sol- 
dier. Especially  should  the  pulpit  and  the  church  scatter 
flowers  on  the  graves  of  the  Union  dead,  for  those  awful 
battles  and  the  awful  carnage  were  planned  by  the  blind- 
ness and  weakness  of  religion.  Christians  in  England 
opened  a  traffic  in  human  bodies  and  souls.  The  pulpit 
was  too  weak  or  too  ignorant  to  oppose  slavery  in  its 
beginning. 


134  ECHOES 

The  Bible  An  Open  Book. 

The  Bible  may  be  a  closed  book  to  many  modem 
philosophers  and  casuists,  but  to  the  multitude  at  large 
it  lies  an  open  book,  with  a  light  better  than  that  of  the 
sun  upon  its  page.  In  fact,  in  order  to  learn  the  value 
of  the  Bible,  we  must  repair  to  the  multitude,  for  they 
make  up  that  vast  audience  to  whom  its  words  were 
spoken,  and  they  make  up  a  jury  that  interprets  the 
Word  without  prejudice.  If  the  Bible  had  been  com- 
posed for  the  highest  order  of  purely  intellectual  men, 
then  they  would  be  indeed  the  only  commentators  we 
should  dare  consult.  In  seeking  for  the  meaning  of 
Puflfendorif,  we  maj^  willingly  consult  all  the  learned 
moralists,  and  one  may  well  read  a  learned  commentator 
upon  a  learned  Blackstone;  but  when  one  comes  to  read 
letters  from  his  mother  or  his  friend,  or  the  poems  of 
Cowper  or  Burns,  he  may  dispense  with  Augustine  and 
Calvin,  and  may  go  to  the  writings  in  his  own  mind  and 
soul.     The  Bible  is  God's  word  to  the  people. 

"Protestant"  and  "Catholic." 

No  one  can  reason  over  the  words  "Protestant"  and 
"Catholic"  without  making  great  use  of  the  phrase 
"long  ago."  Over  the  Piedmond  massacre  John  Milton 
wrote  his  elegant  sonnet: 

"Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints  whose  bones 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold." 

*  *  *  *  *  ^  :fc 

"  Forgot  not.     In  thy  book  record  their  groans 
Who  were  thy  sheep  and  in  their  ancient  folds, 
Slain  by  the  bloody  Piedmontese  that  rolled 
Mother  and  infant  down  the  rocks. ' ' 

But  we  must  not  permit  our  indignation  to  make  us  for- 
get that  more  than  two  hundred  years  have  passed  since 


DAVID   SWING.  135 

that  massacre,  and  that  in  the  meantime  the  Protestants 
have  put  to  death  many  witches  and  have  dealt  heavily 
in  slaves,  and  have  run  an  inquisition  against  Africans. 

Religion   Should  Stand  Great. 

Religion  should  never  bend  much  downward,  but 
should  stand  calm  and  divine  upon  its  lofty  mountain, 
and  entice  the  multitude  upward.  It  is  marvelous  how 
soon  a  crowd  will  rise  to  the  level  of  its  leader.  Moses 
dashed  to  pieces  the  golden  calf,  and  steadfastly  lifted  up 
the  true  God.  In  a  few  years  the  Israelites  arose  from 
the  idol  to  the  living  Jehovah.  There  is  a  limit  to  the 
usefulness  of  the  law  of  accommodation.  There  is  a  law 
of  ideals  which  makes  it  necessary  that  each  individual 
and  each  group  of  individuals  should  be  held  by  the  vision 
of  something  above  self.  In  the  career  of  Christianity 
only  those  leaders  can  conduct  the  Church  to  succeiis  who 
are  able,  and  who  are  brave  enough  to  stand  above  the 
people  and  to  invite  them  to  higher  seats.  The  idea  of  a 
miiaculous  call  into  the  ministry  has  let  loose  into  the 
world  hundreds  cf  teachers  who,  instead  of  leading  the 
people  upward,  have  helped  them  back. 

"Wolf!  Wolf!" 

Many  of  our  aphorisms  and  phrases  possess  a  reverse 
side.  "The  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing"  is  rivaled  by  the 
lamb,  concealed  in  the  skin  of  the  wolf.  Men  cry, 
"Wolf  !  "  "Wolf !  "  when  the  creature  is  found  at  last  to 
be  only  a  lamb.  The  maxim,  *  'not  all  is  gold  that  glit- 
ters," is  equaled  by  the  truth  that  much  which  does  not 
glitter  is  pure  gold.  Many  an  idea  which  seemed  to  onr 
fathers  a  roaring  lion  about  to  destroy  society  and  the 
church,  proves  now  to  have  been  a  dove,  which  ought  to 
have  made  its  home  in   the  church  altars.     Much  of 


136  ECHOES 

thought  which  our  fathers  supposed  nothing  but  a  New- 
England  freak  of  the  mind  is  now  the  best  philosophy  of 
all  human  life.  But  all  these  changes  from  poison  to 
honey  take  place  in  long  time.  Sometimes  ten  years  will 
suflSce,  but  in  our  era  fifty  years  are  the  more  common 
distance  between  hate  and  love.  Long  ago  centuries 
were  consumed  by  the  people  in  learning  the  beauty  of 
the  beautiful,  or  the  truthfulness  of  the  true.  Indeed  it 
has  been  only  the  late  time  that  has  fully  realized  that 
Christ  came  as  the  friend  of  all  the  human  race  and  of  all 
alike;  as  benevolent  as  the  sunbeam  which  never  asks 
about  the  color  or  rank  of  the  man  who  owns  the  field. 
Down  comes  the  sunshine  upon  the  farm  of  the  negro  and 
the  white  man,  and  upon  the  little  garden  i^f  the  widow. 
The  European  scholars  asked  for  eighteen  centuries  in 
which  to  learn  that  Jesus  had  one  word  and  one  love  for 
each  and  all.  It  more  frequently  happens  that  a  great 
truth  will  become  known  and  loved  in  about  fifty  years. 

Jesus  Willing  to  Die. 

Our  dead  soldiers  lie  in  the  graves  that  can  be  under- 
stood. The}'  knew  for  what  great  end  they  offered  up 
life  Each  died  for  something  greater  than  a  personal 
life.  A  good  nation  may  bring  happiness  to  millions, 
and  for  many  centuries.  If  our  sun  could  not  shine 
again  until  you  should  die,  how  soon  you  would  say: 
"Let  me  perish,  that  the  sunshine  may  flood  the  globe." 
For  a  great  end  men  are  willing  to  die.  They  love  the 
beautiful  earth  and  their  own  beautiful  life,  but  weighed 
down  by  the  need  of  all  humanity  at  last  the  heart  wishes 
to  go  down  to  death  that  the  millions  may  rise.  Thus 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  willing  to  perish.  The  vision  of  the 
brilliant  future  dispelled  the  gloom  around  his  own  fore- 
head and  made  the  cross  stand  up  in  rosy  light.     Thus 


DAVID   SWING.  137 

in  the  name  of  a  great  future  for  the  race,  good  men  have 
moved  peacelully  toward  death.  A  certain  divine  logic 
enters  the  mind  and  overrules  the  loves  of  the  heart. 
Mother,  child,  wife,  friends,  are  left  behind,  because  a 
mighty  logic  presses  upon  the  intellect  and  dispels  all 
pleasures  except  one — the  service  of  the  country;  it 
makes  thorny  all  paths  except  one — the  path  of  a  redeemed 
Nation.  Had  it  not  been  for  this  divine  logic  with  its 
power  to  silence,  the  personal  pleadings  of  the  heart,  the 
world  would  to-day  be  without  any  great  nation,  without 
a  hero,  and  without  a  Savior. 

To-morrow  will  be  as  To-day. 

To-morrow  will  only  be  to-day  rolled  on.  While  we 
are  passing  along  through  the  early  years,  it  is  lawful 
for  us  to  load  the  times  to  come,  for  then  the  body  and 
the  mind  are  strengthening  for  work,  and  the  school 
house  stands  between  us  and  the  great  duties  of  the 
world;  but  when  manhood  has  fully  come,  this  worship 
of  to-morrow  should  be  given  up,  and  the  full  significance 
of  the  present  should  burst  upon  the  intellect  and  soul. 
All  the  dazzle  of  to-morrow,  after  that,  is  only  an  ignis- 
fatuus. 

Our  Sorrows  Only  Temporary. 

Decoration  Day  does  not  come  this  year  to  a  prosperous 
and  happy  Nation,  but  to  one  distracted  and  afflicted. 
Not  on  this  account  should  the  graves  of  the  soldiers 

ceive  any  the  fewer  flowers.  The  intellectual  and 
moral  littleness  of  these  years  should  make  all  the  more 
noble  the  men  who  died  for  our  country  thirty  years  ago. 
Compared  with  the  leaders  of  to-day,  those  lying  dead  in 
the  national  cemeteries  should  assume  the  form  of  heroes 
possible  in  the  records  of  poetry.     It  seems  almost  ^ 


138  ECHOES 

dream  that  we  ever  had  such  an  array  of  statesmen  and 
soldiers  as  springs  up  in  memory  of  these  memorial  days. 
Out  of  affection  and  gratitude  we  should  all  hasten  to 
ornament  the  places  where  they  sleep.  Not  only  were 
those  men  great  in  mind  and  in  spirit,  but  the  Nation 
for  which  they  died  is  still  great.  The  blunders  and 
wrongs  that  mar  the  present  are  temporary,  the  merit  of 
the  country  is  more  lasting.  When  the  great  storm 
swept  over  this  inland  sea  recently,  all  seemed  on  the 
verge  of  ruin.  How  could  any  ship  outlive  such  anger? 
How  could  any  shore  stand  the  shock  of  such  waves? 
But  in  a  few  hours  the  storm  ceased  and  the  trees  stood 
up  straight  and  beautiful,  and  the  grass  was  fresh  and 
happy.  Thus,  however,  troublous  the  times,  the  Nation 
is  still  here  to  wait  in  patience  the  clearer  sk}^  of  to-mor- 
row. The  ills  we  suffer  are  those  of  only  a  day  and  not 
those  of  a  life  time  or  a  century. 

The  Study  of  Man  is  the  Study  of  Mind. 
The  perpetual  study  of  man  is  the  perpetual  study  of 
all  mind,  human  or  angelic,  or  divine.  As  soon  as  man 
learns  that  men  must  love  one  another,  he  learns  that 
God  must  love  all  His  children.  A  truth  upon  earth 
must  be  a  truth  in  heaven.  A  circle  crossed  by  diameters 
in  our  great  desert  would  be  seen  as  a  circle  by  the  minds 
in  Mars.  Therefore,  as  humanity  unveils  its  own  moral 
beauty,  it  paints  the  divine  portrait.  Thus  every  white 
flag  of  love  and  peace,  waved  by  benevolence  upon  earth, 
implies  that  there  is  an  unseen  flag  of  love  waving  on  the 
walls  of  God's  own  palace.  Earth  and  heaven  are  one  in 
morality.  The  existence  of  sin,  sufiering,  and  death 
need  not  mar  this  portait  of  the  Creator;  because  the 
immensity  of  the  universe,  of  its  times  and  aims,  makes 
capable  of  concealing  nearly  all  the  essential  facts.     If 


DAVID   SWING.  139 

we  imagine  that  some  inhabitant  of  some  other  planet,  a 
being  as  intellectual  as  Dante  or  Milton,  had  touched  our 
earth  at  Yorktown  in  1871,  and  to  his  amazement  had 
seen  men  fighting  to  the  death,  had  seen  the  wounded 
carried  back  and  had  trembled  at  the  thunder  of  the  guns, 
he  would  have  said:  "What  folly,  what  wickedness  is 
this?"  There  in  those  autumn  fields,  under  the  sweet 
October  skies,  where  the  colored  woods  and  the  autumn 
leaves  rustling  to  the  foot,  ought  to  make  man  a  poet 
and  a  worshiper,  sword  and  bayonet  were  doing  their 
bloody  work.  It  would  be  necessary  for  the  stranger  to 
sit  down  and  hear  the  whole  history  of  the  earth;  he 
would  have  to  learn  of  primitive  man  as  a  savage,  learn 
of  truth  coming  by  labor  and  battle,  he  would  need,  at 
least,  to  see  despotism  filling  all  the  past  before  York- 
town,  and  a  great  nation  of  freemen  coming  down  out 
of  the  future.  Thus,  taken  into  the  past  and  the  future, 
the  roar  of  the  guns  would  seem  music  and  the  soldiers 
of  liberty  all  heroes.  So  we  can  not  condemn  this  scene 
of  pain  in  human  life,  for  there  is  no  one  to  tell  us  what 
lay  back  of  these  ills,  and  what  brilliant  years  may  be  in 
waiting  before  them.  The  best  influence  is  that  the  con- 
flict here  is  carrying  the  soldiers  all  forward  toward  some 
divine  and  perpetual  republic. 

Beauty  Following  Thought. 

When  thought  comes  beauty  follows,  only  purifying 
itself  in  the  deeper  thought.  As  men  grow  more  impress- 
ive in  features  and  women  grow  more  beautiful,  as  the 
thought  and  truth  of  the  world  increase,  so  all  beauty 
grows  with  the  growing  volume  of  knowledge  and  wis- 
dom. The  more  profound  the  age  in  wisdom,  the  better 
will  be  its  music.     An  Indian  tribe  could  not  have  writ- 


140  ECHOES 

ten  the  funeral  march  of  Beethoven,  because  that  compo- 
sition could  only  come  in  an  age  that  had  power  to  look 
upon  death  with  a  mighty  intellect  and  see  the  entire 
spectacle  of  man  falling  down  from  his  height  into  the 
silence  of  the  strange  deep.  Thus  the  great  intellect 
must  be  followed  by  great  beauty.  The  greatness  of  the 
thought  suggests  the  greatness  of  the  decoration.  No  one 
in  Paris  would  repair  to  a  French  milliner's  shop  to  see 
beauty,  because  there  is  no  great  thought  in  the  shop. 
One  had  better  take  a  long  walk  and  enter  the  tomb 
of  Napoleon,  where  greater  reflection  would  lie  under  the 
ornaments;  or  go  to  the  Church  of  St.  Denis,  whose  walls 
seem  still  sounding  with  the  eloquence  of  Massillon,  when 
he  uttered  his  solemn  oration  over  the  princes  whom 
death  had  transferred  into  dust.  Where  great  thought 
has  been  thither  beauty  has  always  run  with  swift  foot. 

The  Reformation  Occupied  Three  Hundred  Years. 

What  is  known  as  the  Reformation  did  not  begin  with 
Luther,  but  it  dawned  when  the  nations  began  to  open 
the  long  closed  avenues  of  thought  and  sentiment.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  Dante  was  almost 
as  broad  and  free  as  our  Gladstone  and  Castelar.  He  was 
a  Greek  and  a  Catholic  joined  in  one  manhood.  He  was 
a  union  of  the  Bible  and  Homer  and  Virgil.  He  was  as 
broad  as  the  entire  past.  He  advocated  the  unity  of 
language,  a  brotherhood  of  all  nations,  and  a  separation 
of  state  from  church.  After  Dante  the  Papal  literature 
almost  ceased  to  exist,  and  all  the  colleges  from  Rome  to 
Oxford  were  reveling  in  those  wide  truths  and  beauties 
which  had  created  Athens  and  the  Latin  world.  When 
the  Pope,  with  his  court,  paid  a  visit  to  the  university  of 
Ferrara,  he  was  entertained  by  private  theatricals  taken 
from    Latin    plays;     and     he    found    a    girl    of   eigh- 


DAVID   SWING.  141 

teen  uttering  eloquent  lectures  upon  the  Greek  and 
Latin  masters.  She  was  more  a  rationalist  than  a 
church  woman.  The  journey  of  the  Pope  was  made 
in  the  hope  of  conciliating  the  professors  and  stu- 
dents to  his  own  cause.  It  was  too  late.  The 
narrow  books  of  the  monks  and  the  clergy  had  faded 
under  the  new  classic  sun.  They  were  never  to  shine 
again,  Luther  himself  was  on  earth  only  sixty-three 
years.  The  Reformation  occupied  more  than  three  hun- 
dred years.  Luther  was  potent  only  in  the  middle  part 
of  the  great  tumult.  But  that  splendid  period  did  not 
secure  to  the  human  mind  all  that  free  play  of  air  and 
light,  that  rich  soil,  that  rain  and  dew,  that  hot  summer 
which  are  demanded  by  so  divine  a  thing  as  the  soul. 
There  remained  the  race  cf  kings  and  aristocratic  and 
blooded  families.  These  drew  wealth  and  all  good 
toward  themselves  The  common  people  were  as  much 
forgotten  in  Spain,  France  and  England,  as  they  were  in 
the  times  of  the  Egyptian  brickyards.  It  was  the  busi- 
ness of  the  millions  simply  to  work,  in  order  to  pay  larg 
rents  to  the  favored  minority. 

The  Poverty  of  the  Prophet. 

Within  a  definite  and  beautiful  channel  moved  all  the 
heroism  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  It  was  a  part 
or  the  Divine-  Providence  (the  whole  of  which  we  call 
inspiration),  that  gave  these  men  their  isolation,  and 
through  it  their  spiritual  power.  The  poverty  of  the 
prophets,  their  half-wild  life,  their  perfect  concentration 
upon  religion,  were  natural  agencies  that  helped  lift 
their  souls  up  toward  Deity.  Their  heroism  was  not 
that  only  of  a  soldier  who  dares  the  chance  of  battle,  but 
it  was  also  that  of  a  philosopher  who  despises  the  pleas- 
ures and  applause  of  the  fashionable  world.     If  you  ask 


142 


ECHOES 


the  wide  world  in  all  its  high  civilization,  from  old 
Babylon  to  Athens,  and  onward  to  London  and  Paris, 
wherein  lies  the  success  of  man,  that  broad,  flashing 
world  will  tell  you,  by  actions  if  not  by  words,  that 
riches,  and  feasting,  and  power,  and  palaces,  and  titles, 
and  the  beauty  of  woman,  the  hilarity  of  wine,  the  ro- 
mance of  song,  make  up  the  significence  of  human  life. 
In  such  a  many-colored  light  society  has  always  moved 
along  in  its  dance  of  life  and  death. 

I/ittle  Souls  cannot  be  kept  from  the  Bosom  of  God. 

That  God  will  approve  of  nothing  wrong,  is  the  hope  of 
the  world  as  to  virtue.  That  he  will  reward  those  who 
love  Him  is  the  refuge  of  peace  for  each  soul.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  the  God  unveiled  by  Christ,  the  mother  ma}'  in 
perfect  hope  lay  down  her  infant  in  the  grave.  She  needs 
place  no  holy  earth  in  its  cofiiin,  no  baptism  upon  its 
forehead  ;  she  need  read  no  ambiguous  words  from  the 
rubric  or  the  confession,  for  the  God  in  Christ  is  a  great 
God,  and  none  but  the  consciously  and  willingl)'  sinful 
need  tremble  at  His  wrath.  As  for  the  children  in  their 
tombs,  they  need  no  intervention  of  holy  water  or  holy 
ground.  All  the  maledictions  of  earth,  all  the  condem- 
natory laws  of  all  the  bishops,  all  the  anathemas  of  a 
thousand  popes,  could  not  detain  one  of  those  little  souls 
a  moment  from  the  bosom  of  God. 

Christmas  and  the  Feasting  of  the  Thousands. 

In  the  story  of  the  feeding  of  the  multitude,  there  was 
more  food  after  the  feast  than  there  was  in  its  beginning; 
for  the  feast  began  in  what  one  boy  had  in  a  basket ;  but 
it  took  twelve  boys  and  twelve  baskets  to  carry  away  the 
fragments  left  on  the  tables  and  the  grass.  The  expla- 
nation is  given  us  in  the  statement  that  the  Divine  Lord 
presided  at  the  out-door  table,  and  had  made  starvation 


DAVID   SWING.  143 

turn  into  a  banquet.  The  story  illustrates  well  the  mul- 
tiplication of  beauty  when  a  great  religion  and  a  great 
philosophy  repose  beneath  it,  for  what  was  one  basketful 
when  the  hungry  ones  began  to  eat,  becomes  afterward 
more  basketfuls  than  many  hands  can  carry  away  from 
the  blessed  field.  Christmas  is  the  twelve  baskets  full 
found  remaining  from  the  first  simple  arts,  and  it  should 
be  an  adequate  explanation  for  us  that  a  great  Savior  has 
passed  over  the  banqueting  ground. 

Days  when  God  was  all. 

What  we  call  civilization  is  not  the  human  condition 
that  speaks  always  the  most  intense  spiritual  words. 
In  a  broad  age  the  heart  may  love  so  many  things  that 
it  loves  nothing  deeply.  When  the  authors  of  the  book 
of  Job  and  of  the  Psalms  wrote,  there  was  nothing  grand 
in  the  world  but  religion.  There  was  no  arts,  no  poli- 
tics, no  sciences,  no  romance.  The  greatest  theme  of 
poet  and  harpist  was  God. 

Vines  and  Flowers. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  human  mind  to  unfold  in 
strength  without  unfolding  toward  beauty.  There  has 
been  no  instance  of  a  purely  useful  progress.  The 
moment  a  race  has  reached  the  reason  that  could  create 
laws  and  found  homes,  in  that  moment  has  the  race 
reached  a  love  of  ornamentation.  When  wisdom  builds 
a  house,  then  taste  appears  to  decorate  the  house. 
When  wisdom  founds  a  republic,  then  taste  comes  to 
adorn  the  republic.  Beauty  can  come  without  wisdom, 
but  there  is  no  instance  in  which  wisdom  has  come  with- 
out beauty.  An  effort  has  been  made  at  times  to  sup- 
press beauty — an  effort  by  the  monks,  then  by  the  Cal- 
vinists,  then  by  the  Quakers,  but  these  eflForts  have 
been  over-whelmed   by  the  rush  of  the  whole   human 


144  ECHOKS 

race,  and  while  the  ascetics  were  most  active  in  their 
little  arenas,  Europe  was  painting  and  carving  and 
building  and  was  planning  its  greatest  music.  The 
Monks,  the  Calvinists,  the  Friends  were  soon  hidden 
like  cold  rocks,  under  wreaths  of  vines  and  flowers. 
Musical  instruments  have  entered  the  churches  which 
once  lived  upon  salvation  alone,  and  now  the  Presby- 
terian and  Methodist  children  dress  like  lilies  and  violets 
and  dance  like  the  waving  boughs  of  trees  or  the  waving 
fields  of  wheat. 

The  Outlook  Draped  With  Clouds. 

If  only  a  few  men  in  a  generation  were  struggling  for 
gold,  the  world  could  bear  the  strain,  but  when  the  pub- 
lic philosophy  is  material,  and  all  the  sweet  infants  are 
born  into  the  passion  for  money  as  they  are  born  into 
liberty  and  language,  the  outlook  seems  draped  with 
clouds. 

The  Hindoo  Fakirs  Are  All  Theologians. 

Men  come  to  the  minister  of  religion  and  ask  him  how 
he  explains  this  and  that  dark  page  of  history,  this  or  that 
dogma.  Oftentimes  the  best  reply  would  be,  "Turn 
aside  from  all  that  record  and  go  and  ask  this  age,  these 
scenes,  the  wants  of  to-day,  the  longings  of  your  soul  to 
give  you  back  the  lost  or  injured  God."  Much  that  is 
called  theology  is  only  the  place  where  men  have  trampled 
down  the  ground  in  their  own  mad  conflicts.  In  India 
devout  heathen  move  in  procession  through  the  streets 
saying,  "ram,"  "ram,"  and  the  spectators  bow  because 
those  who  run  are  priests  of  religion;  but  the  infinite 
God  is  not  there.  Those  fakirs  that  cut  their  bodies 
with  knives  are  all  theologians. 


DAVID   SWING,  145 

Coleridge  in  Chamouni. 

As  a  fact,  no  age  will  ever  be  able  to  find  an  exact 
image  of  the  Creator.  But  the  world  is  cumulative,  and 
will,  as  a  general  rule,  give  in  its  later  estimate  more 
truth  in  religion  than  it  found  in  all  former  meditations. 
Hence,  you  feel  ever  the  impulse  of  worship,  the  sweet- 
ness of  it,  the  solemnity  of  it  in  the  spirit,  you  are  careful 
to  kneel  at  the  altar  of  a  great  God,  that  you  may  your- 
self be  transfigured  on  the  holy  mount.  It  often  comes 
to  pass  that  the  best  worship  comes  into  the  soul  when  it 
is  out  under  the  heavens  at  night,  or  in  the  forests  in 
Summer,  because  there  the  infinity  of  the  sky,  that  host 
of  stars  whose  light  has  come  to  us  by  falling  a  million 
years,  or  the  sweet  solitude  of  the  forest,  where  every 
leaf  seems  written  upon  by  the  finger  of  the  Omnipresent 
One,  fills  the  human  spirit  with  such  a  consciousness  of 
a  great  God,  that  the  worshiper  bursts  forth  in  tears. 
Coleridge,  in  the  valley  of  Chamouni,  betrays  the  secret 
of  all  deep  worship: 

Awake, 
Voice  of  sweet  song  !  Awake,  my  heart,  awake  ! 
Green  vales  and  icy  cliffs,  all  join  my  hymn, 
Thou  first  and  chief  sole  sovereign  of  the  vale, 
Oh,  struggling  with  the  darkness  all  the  night 
And  visited  all  night  by  troops  of  stars. 

The  Years  an  l^truscan  Vase. 

Write  down,  my  young  friend,  as  a  law  of  God  worthy 
of  your  love,  this  potency  of  the  human  will.  Guided  by 
the  right,  the  right  of  public  and  private  life,  and  the 
right  in  religion,  it  will  take  these  years  and  shape  them 
as  the  potter  shapes  clay  into  an  Ktruscan  vase.  But, 
this  law  neglected,  all  these  years  sink  into  a  sleep  that 
knows  no  waking. 


146  ECHOES 

Where  Sin  Is  God  is  Not. 

The  religious  history  of  the  world  marks  not  the  place 
where  God  has  been,  but  only  the  places  where  human 
hope  and  human  madness,  human  darkness  and  light, 
met  and  struggled  and  bled.  When  the  poor  heretic  was 
burned  at  Geneva,  when  the  covenanter  girl  was  tied  to 
the  stake  where  the  tide  would  slowly  rise  over  her, 
when  the  witches  were  burned,  when  infants  were  damned 
God  was  not  present;  religion  was  not  there.  Those 
places  were  spots  where  contending  men  met  just  as  old 
Carthage  and  old  Alexandria  were  places  where  opposing 
vandals  came  together. 

Highest  Education  Tends  to  Simplicity. 

It  is  now  well  known  that  the  highest  education  itseli 
tends  to  a  simplicity  of  words  and  thought.  Youth  and 
romantic  years  may  love  obscure  dreamings,  and  there 
are  conditions  of  intellect  that  delig^it  in  the  unfathom- 
able of  thought,  but  the  world  as  a  vast  body  of  rational 
beings  delights  in  truths  the  clearest  and  language  the 
simplest.  As  the  open  sunlight  is  dear  to  all,  so  men 
like  to  sit  down  in  the  best  light  of  truth.  And  if  this  is 
not  true  ot  all  the  days  of  men,  it  is  true  of  their  best 
days  at  least,  the  days  of  most  sincerity  and  solemnity. 

Christmas  a  Highwave  of  Goodwill  to  Men. 

That  Christmas  which  in  these  December  days  is  at- 
tempting to  express  itself  oyer  all  the  cities  and  villages 
of  two  continents,  which  is  hanging  its  wreathes,  bedeck- 
ing its  pine  trees,  buying  its  gifts,  preparing  its  table, 
inviting  its  guests,  singing  its  anthems  and  songs,  is 
only  an  effort  of  human  love  to  express  itself  to  the 
rushing  world.  It  says  to  the  pulpit,  "You  cannot  fully 
express  me;"  it  says  to   the   books,   "You  cannot  fully 


DAVID   SWING.  147 

proclaim  me;"  it  says  to  the  artist,  "You  cannot  paint 
my  picture;"  it  says  to  the  organ  and  violin,  "You 
cannot  sound  forth  my  presence  and  charm.  I  shall  go 
to  every  fireside,  and  shall  ask  all  the  inmates  of  the 
scattered  homes  to  put  my  wreathes  in  their  windows 
and  kindle  my  fire  on  every  hearth.  To  all  the  argu- 
ments of  the  statesman  I  shall  add  the  pleadings  of 
flowers  in  mid-winter,  and  to  all  the  pleadings  of  litera- 
ture and  of  the  orators  I  shall  add  the  happy  laughter  of 
the  little  child,  and  thus  by  many  concurring  voices, 
each  beautiful ;  by  many  witnesses,  all  telling  one  beau- 
tiful thought,  I  will  teach  the  Jew  and  Gentile  that 
Christ's  religion  is  a  wave,  high  and  wide,  of  good- will 
to  men." 

Usefulness  is  born  of  I/Ove. 

As  liberalism  is  the  seeker  of  the  wider  truth  and  the 
more  permanent  usefulness,  so  its  opposite  is  the  disipa- 
tion  of  the  soul's  forces  over  what  is  not  of  long  life  nor 
of  value  while  it  lives.  The  greatest  usefulness  comes 
from  the  concentration  of  love  upon  objects  the  most  no- 
ble. The  moment  a  man  finds  time  or  the  disposition  to 
love  some  small  rite  or  ceremony,  that  moment  his  heart 
has  divided  up  its  current.  Instead  of  flowing  into  the 
sea  majestically  like  the  Amazon,  its  love  spreads  out 
like  the  delta  of  the  Nile  into  a  hundred  channels,  through 
no  one  of  which  can  an  ocean  ship  pass.  Any  great 
truth  sailing  up  toward  such  a  heart  must  anchor  on  the 
outside. 

The  Greatness  of  the  World. 

Often  when  one  falls  into  a  deep  thought  over  the  earth 
with  its  marvelous  qualities  and  contents,  its  size,  its  mo- 
tions, its  seasons,  its  land,  water,  air,  light,  its  motion 
around  its  axis,  and  around  the  sun,  its  speed — sixty- 
eight  thousand  miles  an  hour — forever,  the  sunlight  and 


148 


ECHOES 


moonlight  on  the  fields  and  waters,  its  forests,  its  fields, 
its  fruits,  its  harvests,  its  grasses,  its  blossoms,  its  rains, 
its  dews,  its  lightening,  its  thunder,  its  life,  beginning 
in  the  butterfly  and  ending  in  man,  its  great  animal- 
man — a  marvelous  mind,  amazing  in  art,  reason,  love, 
memory,  and  hope  ;  man — the  amazing  creature  that 
lives  and — what  is  as  wonderful — dies  ;  the  mind  sinks 
from  weakness  and  says  :  "  It  is  impossible  !  Such 
things  cannot  be  true  ;  there  is  no  such  world  ;  such 
things  could  not  be ;  it  is  some  dream,  the  reality  is 
plainly  impossible."  But  after  the  mind  has  said  over 
and  over,  •'  The  world  is  impossible,"  its  decision  is  set 
at  naught  by  the  real,  for  the  foot  moves  out  upon  the 
ground,  the  hand  plucks  a  flower,  the  eye  sees  the 
heavens  and  the  ocean,  friends  call,  the  streets  swarm 
with  life,  they  roar  with  industry,  and  the  impossible 
surrenders  gracefully  to  the  fact.  Thus  with  the  idea  of 
God.  Its  greatness  forms  no  obstacle  in  the  path  oi 
faith.  The  words  infinite,  eternal,  invisible,  all-wise, 
and  omnipresent  are  made  necessarj^  not  by  the  books 
of  the  theologian,  but  by  the  unparalleled  greatness  and 
wonder  of  the  entire  spectacle. 

The  New  Testament  has  been  Compelled    to  keep  bad 
Company. 

God  alone  can  look  through  incidents  or  accidents  and 
see  the  intrinsic  worth  beyond.  The  human  mind  can 
not  penetrate  the  universe,  but  it  must  look  at  the  exter- 
nals and  there  locate  its  love  or  hate.  The  New  Testa- 
ment has  been  compelled  to  keep  some  very  bad  com- 
pany in  its  day.  It  had  to  live  awhile  with  Augustine, 
who  was  as  much  Pagan  as  Christian,  and  who  was  as 
obscure  as  midnight.  It  suffered  from  partnership  with 
Tertullian,   and   then  from  the  long  dark    ages  which 


DAVID   SWING.  149 

taught  all  the  follies  possible  to  human  imagination,  and 
quoted  God's  words  in  their  support ;  and  then  from 
even  Luther  and  Calvin,  who  added  as  much  of  the  false 
and  the  terrible  to  the  Bible  as  they  drew  from  it  of  the 
true  and  beautiful.  Thus  all  the  way  of  its  march  the 
divine  book  has  suffered  from  the  badness  of  the  com- 
pany it  has  kept. 

Space  Seems  Impossible. 

The  universe  transcends  the  mind  in  so  many  places 
and  manners  that  man  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  him- 
self surpassed  by  the  conception  of  a  Creator.  Space 
seems  impossible,  because  man  can  not  conceive  of  that 
which  has  no  outer  boundary.  If  space  possed  an  outer 
boundary,  then  there  would  be  still  room  beyond  the 
bound.  Space  is  therefore  impossible.  So  time  is  made 
impossible  by  the  fact  that  everything  must  have  had  a 
beginning,  and  if  time  has  a  beginning  there  must  have 
been  something  previous  to  time. 

The  Fourth  and  Fifth  Centuries. 

In  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  of  our  era,  the 
European  state  closed  the  Greek  and  Latin  gates  against 
the  human  intellect,  and  ordered  those  who  could  read  or 
who  desired  to  read,  to  study  the  holy  writings  of  the 
monks  and  the  ecclesiastics  of  all  degrees.  For  centuries, 
the  public  mind  drew  its  nutriment  from  the  biographies 
of  wonderful  ascetics  and  metaphj^sical  inquirers.  Instead 
of  being  a  distributor  of  all  valuable  goods,  the  religio- 
state  was  busy  in  keeping  all  the  classic  goods  away 
from  the  multitude.  Instead  of  helping  the  Selkirk  on 
his  island  home,  the  State  invaded  the  island  to  rob  him, 
and  instead  of  giving  what  he  needed,  it  took  away  his 
hatchett,  his  saw,  and  his  gun.  A  city  of  antiquity  was 
captured,   not  by  a  beating  down  of  walls,   or  by  the 


150  ECHOES 

device  of  the  wooden  horse,  but  by  cutting  off  the  river 
which  flowed  through  it.  Without  water  for  man  or 
beast,  the  great  capital  was  compelled  to  surrender. 
Thus  the  state  church  cut  off  from  the  Christian  public 
the  classic  river,  and  soon  the  mind  surrendered,  and  the 
Dark  Ages  set  in. 

No  More  Military  Poems. 

No  military  poems  have  been  composed  since  the  com- 
ing of  Jesus  Christ.  Before  His  day,  the  most  gifted 
brains  busied  their  muse  with  the  battles  of  Agamemnon, 
Achilles,  and  ^nas.  But  when  after  Christ  the  highest 
form  of  literature  began  to  come  back  to  the  world,  the 
battle-cry,  the  mad  career  of  ambition,  the  rolling  chariot, 
the  cloud  of  arrows,  had  disappeared  from  poetry. 

All  Endless  Problem. 

All  minds  which  assume  the  existence  of  a  God,  must 
consent  to  confess  together  over  an  endless  problem — 
endless  as  to  this  world — the  nature  of  God.  A  thought- 
ful atheism  would  not  escape  debate  and  unrest,  because 
it  would  be  compelled  to  contend  always  with  the  ques- 
tion, how  natural  forces  could  make  such  a  universe  and 
fill  it  with  such  a  thinking  mind  as  that  of  man.  The 
universe  without  a  God  seems  at  least  as  difficult  as  the 
universe  with  one.  Atheism  is,  therefore,  no  escape 
from  mental  perplexity.  Man  is  here,  and  in  such  cir- 
cumstances that  an  intellectual  battle  is  unavoidable. 
Atheist  or  Deist,  he  must  live  in  the  presence  of  a  great 
problem.  The  only  escape  from  the  perplexing  inquiries 
is  to  be  found  in  an  indifference  akin  to  sleep  or  mental 
torpidity. 


DAVID   SWING.  151 

Many  Thoughts  Die. 

Not  all  new  thoughts  are  the  result  of  the  age,  for 
there  is  a  great  difference  between  a  new  thought  and  a 
new  truth.  Many  thoughts  die.  The  socialism  of 
Fourier  and  Owen  was  only  a  thought.  The  age  did 
not  make  it  and  would  not  support  it,  but  liberty  was  a 
truth  of  the  age  and  on  it  went  with  a  resistless  impulse. 
The  mind  now  possesses  such  a  new  activity  that  it  is 
overflowing  with  projects.  Not  one-third  part  of  these 
ever  turn  into  great  truths.  The  flying  instrument  of 
Darius  Green  never  took  its  place  among  the  products  of 
the  century.  It  was  only  a  suggestion.  Darius  made  a 
motion,  but  it  was  not  seconded. 

But  I/ittle  New  Truth. 

No  one  therefore,  can  teach  us  anything  about  man 
and  God,  but  there  is  many  a  one,  poet  or  writer  or 
friend,  who  can  persuade  us  to  pass  once  again  along  an 
old  path.  We  can  easily  imagine  a  meeting  of  two  as- 
tronomers, a  Herschel  and  a  Mitchell,  and  a  long  con- 
versation as  coming,  which,  without  giving  to  either  a 
single  new  thought,  would  make  the  universe  more 
thrilling  to  both  ;  or  we  can  conceive  of  a  meeting  be- 
tween two  great  statesmen,  which  conference,  without 
adding  a  shadow  of  new  truth  to  either  mind,  might 
make  them  both  weep  over  the  greatness  and  beauty  of 
civilization.  If  the  pulpit  had  to  be  a  bureau  of  infor- 
mation many  honest  clergymen  would  at  once  resign ; 
but  they  may  well  remain  in  their  places,  because  the 
chief  ends  of  thought  and  speech  are  to  canvass  the  field 
of  probability  and  hope,  to  keep  thought  active,  to  re- 
trace old  paths,  to  entice  each  other  away  from  a  pure 
materialism  and  to  pour  into  some  hours  an  element  of 
spirituality. 


152  ECHOES 

Poverty  and  Wealth. 
Daniel  and  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel,  who  knew  of  nothing 
great  in  the  world  except  the  great  Jehovah.  In  poverty 
came  all  these  men,  rich  only  in  their  dreams  of  the  King 
of  kings.  To  them  earth  was  remarkable,  not  for  its  art 
and  sciences,  but  as  being  the  temple  of  God. 

Conditions  of  Success. 
The  success  of  mankind  all  depends  upon  three  things: 
the  discovery  of  its  laws  being  well-being,  its  freedom  to 
obey  those  laws,  and  the  goodness  that  will  render  obedi- 
ence. No  one  of  these  three  elements  can  alone  secure 
good  for  man.  Freedom  to  follow  law  is  vain,  unless 
man  knows  what  are  the  laws  of  his  nature.  Knowledge 
is  vain  without  freedom;  and  both  knowledge  and 
freedom  are  useless  unless  the  heart  has  the  goodness 
that  will  make  its  knowledge  and  liberty  pass  into  action. 
The  Indians  have  freedom,  but  they  do  not  what  are  the 
highest  aims  of  the  human  spirit.  The  criminal  and  the 
vagabond  have  both  the  information  and  the  liberty,  but 
they  are  wanting  in  that  goodness  which  can  turn  truth 
and  freedom  into  the  actuality  of  being.  Three  ingredi- 
ents must,  therefore,  meet  to  compose  a  valuable  society 
— knowledge,  freedom  and  goodness. 

Not  Everything  Beautiful. 

Not  every  single  thing  was  to  be  beautiful,  but  there 
was  to  be  a  great  tendency  in  that  direction.  Not  much 
would  escape  its  touch.  There  was  to  be  here  and  there 
a  flower  which  no  woman  or  child  would  care  for  ;  and 
now  and  then  a  shell  with  no  color  in  the  lining.  But 
these  exceptions  were  to  weigh  little  with  any  mind 
which  should  study  the  general  tendency  of  all  nature  to 
burst  out  into  beauty.     The  workers  in  wood  find  more 


DAVID  SWING.  153 

than  thirty  kinds  which  reveal  beauty  when  their  sur- 
face is  polished.  The  number  of  stones  which  polish 
into  beauty  must  be  above  a  hundred.  At  least  the 
number  is  great  enough  to  employ  man's  hand  and  de- 
light his  heart. 

l^gotism. 

Not  simply  were  those  Bible-makers  from  Moses  to 
Paul  all  intellectually  gifted,  but  they  were  almost  sub- 
lime in  the  heroism  of  their  conduct.  We  are  all  by 
nature  worshipers  of  heroes.  Heroism  is  the  subjection 
of  self  to  the  interest  of  a  multitude  or  of  a  principle. 
One  of  the  largest  and  weakest  qualities  in  man  is  his 
egotism.  Egotism  is  an  emotion  that  makes  other 
people  unimportant  compared  with  self.  It  is  the  will- 
ingness that  others  should  bear  the  burden  of  toil  and  of 
poverty,  that  others  should  die  on  the  battle-field,  that 
others  should  care  for  the  poor  and  sit  by  the  bedside  of 
the  dying.  Egotism  is  the  nomination  and  the  election 
and  coronation  of  self  as  king.  Heroism  is  the  opposite 
sentiment.  By  as  much  as  the  former  is  contemptible, 
the  latter  is  sublime.  As  the  world  hates  the  one,  it 
loves  the  other. 

Thomas  JefiFerson. 

Thomas  Jefferson  deduced  from  all  literature  and  his- 
tory the  notion  that  the  slaves  ought  to  be  free,  and  at 
last  he  said:  "Nothing  is  more  certainly  written  in  the  book 
of  fate  than  that  these  people  are  to  be  free. ' '  But  the  spec- 
tacle of  liberty  had  not  become  biilliant  enough  to  trans- 
form the  statesman  into  a  champion  of  immediate  liberty 
for  all.  Mr.  Phillips  came  a  half  century  later,  when  the 
facts  of  the  Nation  had  become  deeply  impressive.  While 
we  award  praise  to  the  orator,  let  us  not  forgeic  that  com- 


154  ECHOES 

munity  which  in  silence  enacted  the  beautiful  drama  of 
the  untrammeled  mind.  The  Northern  people,  in  their 
life,  made  the  speech  for  the  statesman. 

The  Bible  in  the  Schools. 

While  the  Bible  held  its  place  in  the  schools  by  power 
of  conscience,  or  by  a  cheerful  public  consent,  all  was 
well.  Its  lessons  fell  on  good  ground,  like  seed  upon 
rich  soil  in  the  sunshine  of  Spring.  When  these  divine  les- 
sons at  last  need  the  strong  arm  of  law,  and  of  doubtful  or 
unjust  law,  to  sustain  them  in  public  schools,  then  they 
cease  to  fall  upon  the  heart  as  dew  from  Heaven,  but 
come  to  the  ear  more  as  orders  from  a  powerful  despot, 
whose  potency  is  to  be  found  in  the  police.  In  a  New 
England  village,  two  weeks  ago,  in  a  school  where  half 
were  Catholic  and  half  were  Protestant  children,  the 
village  schoolmaster  and  village  priest  fell  to  fighting  in 
the  school  room  as  to  the  reading  or  the  not  reading 
of  the  sermon  on  the  Mount.  It  is  said  that  much  of 
German  infidelity  has  come  from  an  enforced  religion, 
Compulsorj^  Bibles  and  compulsory  prayers  have  never 
proven  a  valuable  element  in  the  spread  of  religion. 

Salvation  and  Forms. 
In  the  former  centuries  it  was  well  enough  to  combine 
inseparably  salvation  and  forms,  salvation  and  baptism, 
or  salvation  and  a  church,  or  salvation  and  a  certain 
"experience,"  for  then  all  were  ready  to  believe  any 
thing,  and  the  more  ceremony  there  was  the  more 
welcome  the  religion.  Even  such  a  proud  and  lofty 
king  as  Louis  XIV.  said  in  his  dying  moments,  "I 
have  done  whatever  my  Church  has  told  me  to  do.  I 
know  nothing  of  Christian  duty  except  as  directed  by 
my  bishops.     If  I   have  done   wrong   the   blame   rests 


DAVID  SWING.  155 

upon  them."  In  all  former  times  it  mattered  not  if 
Heaven  and  trifling  forms  were  bound  together.  But  in 
our  age  there  has  come  to  the  surface  a  new  class  of 
persons.  Issuing  from  a  new  world  of  literature,  of 
developed  reason,  of  deep,  sober  reflection,  they  de- 
manded a  Christianity  purified.  They  will  not,  like 
Louis  XIV.,  say,  "I  have  done  whatever  my  priest 
has  told  me  to  do;"  but,  cutting  loose  from  these 
human  masters,  and  passing  out  into  the  new  world  of 
light  and  liberty,  they  will  place  their  hand  upon  their 
heart,  and  looking  up  to  God,  say,  "What  wouldst 
Thou.'' 

Religion  Kind  to  All  Ages. 

Adult  life  is  drawn  into  the  great  December  whirl  of 
joy,  not  only  because  of  the  power  of  sympathy  between 
age  and  childhood,  but  also  because  a  religion  which  is 
kind  to  one  age  must  be  kind  to  all  ages.  A  philosophy 
which  loves  little  children  cannot  insult  a  Mary  Mag- 
dalen, nor  be  unmoved  by  the  common  cry  of  one  race. 
Within  the  whole  bound  of  such  a  system  a  prodigal 
can  say:  "I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  father."  To  a 
heart  kind  toward  a  child  any  strong  man  may  repair. 
In  it  even  the  brute  may  take  refuge,  for  the  human  soul 
can  have  only  one  color.  As  the  sun  touches  all  objects, 
stone,  or  water,  or  leaf,  or  face,  with  its  one  kind  of 
beam,  so  the  kind  heart  has  for  man  or  brute,  child  and 
adult,  only  one  dominant  sentiment.  Therefore,  the 
Christmas  for  children  involves  all  middle  life  and  the 
later  years  in  its  outpouring  of  good  will. 

Saviour. 

He  calls  Himself  "Saviour"  but  He  waits  not  to 
place  Himself  upon  the  platform  of  the  various  theories 
regarding  the  manner  of  the  great  price  paid  or  to  be 


156  ECHOES 

paid  for  the  soul.  He  seems  to  love  the  broad  name  of 
"Saviour"  or  leader  of  the  soul,  that  all,  of  whatever 
age,  child  or  father,  of  whatever  condition,  learned  or 
unlearned,  may  take  the  grand  word  to  heart,  and  draw 
life  and  peace  from  it  merciful,  elastic  breath.  On  ac- 
count of  this  tendency  of  Christ  to  deal  in  universals.  He 
has  stood  forth  in  beauty  and  light  even  when  around 
those  who  pretended  to  follow  Him  has  roared  the  storm 
of  debate.  The  long  and  bloody  conflict  that  has  often 
made  the  Christian  Church  resemble  the  arena  of  Nero's 
gladiators,  or  the  orgies  of  the  painted  Indians,  arose  out 
of  these  limited  intellects  which  emer;jed  from  cells  and 
convents  and  inquired  whether  the  atonement  was  limited 
or  general,  whether  the  halo  about  the  Christ  was  de- 
rived or  underived  and  whether  the  Holy  Ghost  pro- 
ceeded eternally  from  the  Father  alone  or  from  both  the 
Father  and  the  Son. 

August  Comte. 

Fifty  years  have  passed  since  August  Comte  began  to 
promulge  what  he  called  "The  Positive  Philosophy." 
He  was  led  to  it  by  his  long  study  of  all  that  past  which 
had  viewed  all  things  in  a  theological  light  or  in  a 
metaphysical  light.  According  to  this  acute  Frenchman 
the  human  family  had  lived  long  enough  under  the 
theological  theory  ;  long  enough  under  the  idea  that  God 
or  the  gods  had  decreed  this  or  that  form  of  being  or 
event.  He  affirmed  also  that,  after  mankind  had  wasted 
years  and  ages  in  the  construction  of  theological  systems, 
more  time  still  was  lost  over  metaphysical  inquiries. 
He  asked  the  world  to  leave  both  these  old  paths  and 
begin  to  study  all  the  facts  of  man  and  nature  and  thus 
have  the  pleasure  of  walking  in  a  path  which  lay  within 
a  reality.     Man  was  to  be  an  observ^er,  not  a  theorizer. 


DAVID   SWING.  157 

He  was  to  learn  from  the  facts  all  the  general  principles 
and  laws  which  human  life  would  need  for  its  conduct. 
As  our  mathematics,  agriculture  and  machinery,  do  not 
repose  upon  theology  or  metaphysics,  so  all  the  social 
duties  and  privileges  and  pleasure  were  to  rest  upon 
what  facts  man  could  collect  and  examine  and  classify. 
Thus  was  man  to  escape  from  all  simple  conjecture  and 
be  the  possessor  of  a  positive  philosophy. 

It  was  a  grave  objection  to  this  method  that  it  omitted 
the  idea  of  God,  and,  therefore,  all  the  phenomena  of 
worship  and  religion.  It  was  a  cold  study  of  facts, 
much  like  the  estimates  of  the  astronomer  or  the  geo- 
grapher. Comte,  however,  revealed  in  his  books  the 
new  style  of  the  present  age — the  new  weariness  over 
abstractions  and  unmeaning  miracles,  and  the  new  fond- 
ness for  the  daily  facts  of  man's  life. 

"  Righteous  "— "  Converted." 

A  righteous  man  must  be  confessed  to  be  a  converted 
man.  The  Church  possesses  no  analysis  by  which  it  can 
open  a  heart  and  find  that  morality  is  not  regeneration, 
and  that  the  prayers  and  hymns  of  a  "moralist"  do  not 
issue  from  the  Holy  Spirit,  who,  imaged  as  a  dove,  flies 
back  and  forth  forever  over  the  ocean  of  soul.  There  are 
hundreds  of  men  in  this  city  and  every  where,  who,  lov- 
ing the  New  Testament,  and  bowing  in  reverence  before 
its  central  character,  and  living  and  upright  life,  are  yet 
viewed  as  heirs  of  perdition,  because  they  have  not 
passed  through  an  "experience"  defined  by  mistaken 
fathers,  who  seemed  to  be  able  to  analyze  the  workings 
of  the  spirit  both  of  man  and  of  God.  In  closing  its 
doors  against  "mere  moralists,"  in  waiting  for  only  those 
who   should   come  through  the  gate  of  miracle,  through 


158  ECHOES 

the  tumult  of  an  "experience,"  the  Church  has  shut  out 
a  large  upper  class,  and  has  not  only  deprived  itself  of 
power,  but  has  done  an  unjustice  toward  some  of  the 
noblest  members  of  society. 

Christ  Spoke  for  a  Whole  World. 
Do  not  permit  these  proud  days  to  deceive  you.  The 
time  is  not  far  aw^ay  when  you  will  feel  that  it  is  not  in 
the  power  of  rhetoric  or  passion  to  add  anything  to  the 
words  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  metaphysician  may  secretly 
regret  that  the  Nazarene  did  not  discourse  like  a  Plato 
or  a  I/)cke  ;  the  poet  may  wish  that  the  Son  of  Man  had 
said  more  about  land,  sea,  and  sky,  about  opening  spring- 
time or  the  falling  leaf;  the  Calvinist  and  Trinitarian 
may  wish  they  could  find  in  the  L,ord's  discourse  a 
system  that  should  more  fully  shadow  forth  their  own  ; 
and  devotees  of  science  may  feel  at  times  that  the  Cos- 
mos of  Humboldt  surpasses  the  simple  story  of  the 
Gospels  ;  but  these  longings  and  complaints  are  only  the 
result  of  narrow  specializations.  Christ  spoke  for  a 
whole  world,  for  the  times  of  its  greatest  need,  and  the 
wish  of  the  specialist  is  engulfed  in  the  wade,  infinite 
wish  of  mankind.  Our  wishes  are  the  style  of  time : 
Christ's  manner  the  style  of  eternity. 

Washington. 

Washington  was  destitute  of  the  poetic  sentiment. 
He  saw  a  great  end  with  wonderful  distinctness,  and  the 
path  to  that  end,  and,  in  the  prosecution,  of  this  gigantic 
task,  December  and  May  were  both  one.  He  may  have 
been  thankful  for  flowers,  but  he  did  not  complain  about 
thorns.  His  heart  was  not  easily  broken.  When  his 
troops  were  hungry  and  in  rags  he  spoke  to  them  only 
the  more  kindly.     When  too  feeble  to  fight  he  could  re- 


DAVID   SWING.  159 

treat.  He  could  wait  as  long  as  any  general  living, 
When  the  roads  were  good,  he  advanced  more  easily;  but 
when  mud  and  snow  were  deep  he  still  advanced.  When 
the  great  Benedict  Arnold,  one  of  his  most  trusted  friends, 
betrayed  a  most  valuable  garrison,  Washington  closed  up 
the  opened  gate  in  a  few  hours.  When  Congress  was 
without  sense  and  without  skill,  \A''ashington  was  on 
hand  with  both,  at  all  hours,  with  a  wisdom  that  never 
left  him  for  a  moment  in  seven  years.  Never  before  had 
the  world  seen  such  a  clear  grasp  of  the  value  of  human 
liberty  and  such  a  uniform  realization  of  means  to  an  end. 
His  mind  did  not  flash  like  a  cannon  or  like  a  meteor. 
It  poured  out  constantly,  like  the  sun.  The  calmness 
he  possessed  was  not  that  of  insensibility,  but  it  was  that 
of  an  unchanging  power.  He  lived  in  a  group  of  years 
in  which  each  day  was  great.  In  a  time  when  a  little 
republic  was  lying  under  the  wheels  of  old  iron  chariots, 
how  could  any  small  hours  come?  The  age  not  only 
lifted  Washington  up  to  a  high  level,  but  it  compelled 
him  to  remain  there  until  he  was  taken  down  for  burial. 
Even  when  he  retired  to  Mt,  Vernon  to  find  years  of 
peace,  the  nation  followed  him  and  made  him  act  as 
chief  of  the  army,  and  of  an  army  the  most  illustrous  of 
any  that  had  ever  carried  spear  or  gun. 

"i;et  Me  Die  in  Peace." 

His  heart  never  failed  but  once,  and  that  was  when  he 
sunk  in  death,  saying:  "You  can  do  nothing  for  me. 
L,et  me  die  in  peace." 

The  Power  of  Words. 

Father  and  daughter  were  sounds  that  scarcely  rose 
one  shade  above  the  terms  male  and  female  ;  and  the 
word  man  differed  but  little  from  the  word  brute.  But 
along  came  the  mighty  stages  of  development  pouring 


l6o  ECHOES 

around  these  ideas  the  light  of  new  thought  and  the 
warmth  of  new  love.  As  the  foliage  of  each  Summer, 
and  the  riches  of  the  elements  fall  upon  the  earth  each 
year  and  make  its  soil  deeper  and  richer,  so  the  succes- 
sive generations  cast  their  thoughts  and  affections  and 
actions  down  upon  the  world  of  ideas,  and  these  ideas 
grow  more  and  more  luxuriant  under  this  long  lasting 
care.  Behold  the  Greeks  adding  to  the  import  of  the 
word  "art"  !  Under  their  care  how  the  word  "beauty" 
exapnds  !  And  then  Antigone  came  along,  born  out 
of  poetrj',  and  by  her  pure  and  infinite  affection  put  to 
shame  that  estimate  of  sister  seen  in  the  history  of 
Abraham  and  Lot.  Look  into  the  nineteenth  century 
and  mark  how  it  has  enlarged  these  terms.  Ask  Cowper 
the  meaning  of  that  word  '  'mother' '  that  runs  along 
through  .so  many  languages.  He  gazes  at  the  portrait 
and  says,  with  tears, 

"O  that  those  lips  had  language." 
Christ  Shaping  the  I^iterature  of  Doubt. 

The  word  "mother"  comes  down  through  thirty 
languages  and  through  thirty  centuries,  but. 

When  some  one  misunderstood  the  argument  of  Judge 
Booth,  and  accused  him  of  denying  the  future  life  of  the 
soul,  becomes  forward  and  says  he  should  be  very  unwil- 
ling to  deny  or  doubt  the  future  life  of  man.  Thus  while 
the  Judge  denies  the  exceptional  raising  of  Christ,  he  casts 
himself  fully  upon  the  future  life  of  the  soul,  of  Christ, 
and  of  all  souls.  Thus  Christ  shapes  even  the  literature 
of  doubt.  Thus  there  is  blowing  all  over  the  intellectual 
world,  in  its  most  logical  hours  even,  a  wind  of  paradise 
that  fans  all  the  temples  that  throb  with  being.  That 
this  universal  hope  comes  from  the  matchless  character 


DAVID  SWING.  l6l 

of  Christ,  more  than  from  all  other  sources  combined,  I 
have  not  a  shadow  of  doubt.  All  the  ideas  and  emotions 
we  carry  in  our  hearts  have  come  to  us  from  fountains 
dripping  far  away  from  ourselves.  So  invisible  are  these 
fountains,  so  unconscious  are  our  spirits  of  being  fed  by 
any  such  springs,  that  we  pass  along  through  life  often 
as  though  we  were  independent  thinkers,  and  were 
elaborating  all  our  ideas  out  of  our  own  minds,  as  the 
sun  hurls  forth  light  out  of  its  own  boson. 

Mistakes  of  Agnostics. 

The  agnostic  and  atheistic  minds  make  a  great  mistake 
when  they  say  that  it  is  human  thought  that  makes 
God  ;  that  God  is  a  creation  of  man's  brain.  They  cite 
as  evidence  the  many  gods  and  kinds  of  gods  in  which 
the  race  has  believed.  Such  allegations  are  powerless 
and  irrelevant ;  for  music  and  all  beauty  have  sufifered 
as  much  from  the  different  students  of  these  passing 
forms,  but  no  one  has  possessed  the  mental  weakness 
that  could  deduce  from  a  discordant  past  the  conclusion 
that  there  were  no  such  an  entity  as  music  or  beauty. 
On  the  contrary,  all  have  affirmed  that  a  drum,  beaten 
b}^  a  savage,  every  word  sung  by  a  harsh  Indian  voice, 
has  been  a  proof  and  a  prophecy  of  a  coming  art  power- 
ful and  endless.  In  such  a  world,  where  early  errors 
often  point  to  coming  truths,  where  the  imperfect  virtues 
of  the  best  men  point  toward  the  character  of  that  Being 
from  whom  man  came.  If,  as  the  ages  pass,  man  be- 
comes more  humane,  more  just,  more  widely  loving, 
these  manifestations  of  mind  proclaim  in  louder  and 
louder  accents  the  benevolence  of  God.  These  hands, 
op2n  and  reached  out  in  friendship,  all  point  in  one  way 
— toward  a  love  infinite. 


l62  ECHOES 

Ten  Thoughts. 

Looking  at  the  Decalogue  for  an  hour — a  reading  will 
not  answer  the  demands  of  the  Ten  Thoughts — stud3ang 
for  an  hour,  or  a  day,  that  digest  of  principles,  and 
remembering  in  what  an  age  that  generalization  was 
made,  when  slaves  were  flj'ing  from  bondage  and  scarcely 
knew  which  was  the  better,  bondage  or  freedom,  the 
heart  must  be  lost  to  reason  if  it  does  not  say  over  those 
laws,  here  a  huge  intellect  has  been  hurling  around  him 
the  large  ideas  of  life,  standing  amid  the  ideas  of  sin, 
like  Samson  between  the  columes  of  the  temple,  need- 
ing only  to  reach  out   his  arms  and  the  whole  fabric 

tumbles. 

Christmas  a  Simple  I^anguage. 

Christmas  is  a  language  simpler  than  that  of  all  the 
creeds  and  of  all  moral  philosophy.  While  the  creed  is 
saying,  "God  is  love,  and  man  must  love  his  neighbors;" 
while  moral  philosophy  is  telling  man  his  duty  toward 
man,  the  Christmas  bells  suddenly  ring  and  the  curtain 
rises  upon  a  world  where  millions  of  hearts  are  carrying 
each  some  gift  to  other  hearts,  and  for  the  day,  the  earth 
is  full  of  that  love  which  in  philosophy,  is  only  a  dream. 
On  this  day  the  theory  of  friendship  turns  into  an 
action. 

Angelo  and  Raphael. 

Christianity  helped  to  make  Angelo  and  Raphael  by 
furnishing  them  with  grand  themes.  As  no  lips  can  be 
eloquent  unless  they  are  speaking  in  the  name  of  a  great 
truth,  so  no  painter  can  paint  unless  some  one  brings 
him  a  great  subject.  Heaven  and  hell  made  the  poet 
Dante.  Christianity  made  Beatrice.  Paradise  made 
John  Milton.  The  mother  of  our  Lord  and  the  last 
judgment  made  Angelo.  It  is  the  great  theme  that 
makes  the  orator,  the  painter,  the  poet.  The  great  theme 


DAVID  SWING.  163 

lifts  up  the  soul  and  makes  it  the  revealer  of  anew  world. 
Great  minds  were  sleeping  in  every  age  in  some  cradle 
in  city  and  village,  or  lonely  cottage,  but  they  passed 
through  manhood  and  on  to  the  tomb  unheard,  because 
no  great  theme  had  come  along  to  wake  them  into  a 
broad,  infinite  life.  What  Gray  wrote  in  his  elegy 
possesses  as  much  of  philosophic  truth  as  of  poetic 
sweetness: 

Perhaps  in  this  neglected  spot  is  laid 
Some  heart  once  pregnant  with  celestial  fire; 
Hands  that  the  rod  of  empire  might  have  swayed 
Or  waked  to  ecstacy  the  living  lyre. 

An  Ideal  Christmas. 

Our  age  does  not  want  the  cost  of  Christmas  to  in- 
crease, but  it  does  want  its  good  will  to  men  to  deepen 
with  each  passing  year.  Since  we  stood  at  this  festival, 
last  year,  our  planet  has  carried  our  race  once  around 
the  'great  sun,  five  hundred  millions  of  miles,  holding 
our  homes  and  our  world  always  within  the  reach  of  the 
radient  light.  In  all  that  long  journey  the  earth  has 
never  been  away  from  the  touch  of  that  transforming 
love.  But  each  December  asks  the  sun  to  look  down 
upon  a  larger  human  race,  greater  ctties,  greater  arts, 
greater  sciences,  richer  fields,  more  blessed  homes.  Must 
the  heart  of  man  stand  still  ?  It,  too,  must  hasten  for- 
ward, and  put  millions  of  miles  between  itself  audits 
cold  or  savage  centuries.  The  scenes  of  barbarism  must 
give  place  to  the  scenes  of  friendship.  Five  hundred 
friendly  Indians  are  said  to  have  been  sent  to  persuade 
their  warlike  fellows  to  accept  of  peace.  Persuasion  is 
better  than  guns.  It  is  a  higher  art.  The  white  man 
cannot  afford  to  be  swift  to  shed  blood.  Persuasion  is 
an  art  that  has  made  all  the  orators  that  have  lived,  and 


1 64  ECHOES 

beneath  all  the  great  books  of  the  world  lies  the  art  of 
persuasion.  Last  week  when  word  came  of  the  violent 
death  of  certain  Indians  there  came  into  this  city  an  In- 
dian who  had  graduated  in  Oxford,  England,  and  who, 
a  scholar  of  the  highest  type,  is  a  near  friend  of  many 
scholars  in  Oxford  and  London.  He  passed  from  the 
wild  forest  to  the  learning  of  Europe.  No  one  talking 
with  this  dark  visaged  scholar  will  dare  say  a  dead  In- 
dian is  the  only  good  one.  The  maxims  of  an  armj' 
often  diflfer  widely  from  the  maxims  of  a  Christ ;  but  this 
we  know,  that  the  maxims  of  Jesus  will  bloom  in  immor- 
tality when  the  world's  military  trappings  shall  all  be 
forgotten  dust.  The  death  of  an  Indian  or  Indians  may 
be  a  necessity  of  the  hour,  but  that  necessity  is  often 
the  result  of  those  wasted  years  in  which  divine  power 
of  persuasion  did  not  play  its  nobler  part.  The  gun  is  a 
poor  substitute  for  the  school-house  ;  and  an  Indian  agent 
is  a  poor  exponent  of  the  wisdom  and  love  of  a  matchless 
century. 

The  Great  Discoveries  of  our  Era. 

When  we  see  the  modern  inventions  we  all  exclaim 
what  a  wonderful  thing  it  was  to  learn  the  habits  and 
the  power  of  steam  and  electricity !  But  these  wonders 
are  only  specimens  of  the  power  and  beauty  of  all  knowl- 
edge. Which  would  you  perfer  to  possess,  the  power  to 
send  a  dispatch  quickly  or  the  power  to  enjo}-  a  great 
book  or  a  great  piece  of  music,  or  to  talk  upon  all  sub- 
jects with  some  wise  friend?  The  great  discoveries  of 
our  era  are  only  an  external  advertisement  of  a  wider  and 
deeper  knowledge  as  existing  in  the  mind  of  the  count- 
less multitude.  The  steam  engine  is  a  great  piece  of  hu- 
man knowledge,  but  it  proclaims  a  wisdom  far  greater 
than  itself     It  tells  of  a  universal  thought,  of  which  it  is 


DAVID   SWING.  t65 

itself  only  a  fragment.  The  modern  knowledge  regard- 
ing industry,  education,  rights,  conduct,  home,  kindness, 
all  science,  all  morals,  all  beauty,  is  so  wide  and  deep 
that  our  inventions  are  only  one  mountain  peak  taken  in 
a  range  which  crosses  a  hemisphere. 

Liberty. 
To  prevent  this  knowledge  from  being  useless  the 
mind  must  live  under  the  banner  of  liberty.  Having 
discovered  wise  or  beautiful  paths,  man  must  be  free  to 
pursue  them.  Memory  recalls  the  Galileo  who  was  not 
free  to  study  the  stars,  and  memory  recalls  all  the  minds 
and  hearts  in  Russia  which  must  breathe  in  whispers 
truths  which  ought  to  rend  the  air  in  song  and  hymn 
and  in  all  high  eloquence.  These  thoughts  are  cherished 
in  cellars  which  ought  to  be  like  rainbows  and  span  the 
sky.     In  Russia  truth  is  divorced  from  liberty. 

Martyrdom  an  ISrror  and  a  Crime. 

When  John  Rogers  or  Servetus  was  suffering  in  the 
flames,  could  the  great  God  of  Heaven  have  revealed 
Himself,  could  that  wretched  throng  around  the  kindling 
fire  have  had  their  souls  enlarged  until  the  true  idea  of 
God  could  have  found  entrance,  that  company  would 
have  plucked  the  victim  from  the  stake  and  have  begged 
to  be  forgiven  for  an  error  so  weak  and  for  a  crime  so 
cruel.  They  would  have  wept  for  days  over  such  an 
injustice  to  a  brother,  and  for  engaging  in  such  a  satire 
upon  the  Almighty. 

The  God  Idea. 

The  religious  mind,  be  it  Christian  or  Deistic,  does 
not  carry  any  more  of  credulity  than  is  carried  about  by 
the  atheist.  It  requires  as  much  childishness  to  say 
that  man  came  from  water,  dirt,  heat  and  light,  as  that 
he  came  from  a  God.     What  difference  there  is  in  the 


1 66  ECHOES 

two  forms  of  thought  is  in  favor  of  the  religious  mind, 
because  there  are  a  dignitj-,  a  sublimity,  and  a  moral 
beauty  in  the  assumption  that  our  universe  is  the  work 
of  a  Creator,  and  that  we  are  all  the  children  of  a  great 
Father.  If  utility  and  beauty  can  be  a  sign  of  truth, 
then  the  God-idea  appears  at  once  as  the  more  true. 
The  coldness  and  narrowness  of  atheism  are  conspicuous 
and  are  inseparable  from  itself.  It  is  unable  to  fan  the 
noble  flames  in  the  heart ;  it  possesses  no  sympathy,  no 
inspirational  force,  it  has  no  romance,  no  beauty,  no  art, 
no  infinite  out-look.  It  can  not  possibly  possess  a  single 
element  of  greatness  because  its  universe  takes  its  rise  in 
the  atoms  of  earth  and  water,  and  the  mind  which  starts 
with  such  a  causation  can  never  find  any  motive  for 
tending  upward  in  emotion  or  life.  If  "out  of  nothing 
comes  nothing, ' '  then  out  of  what  is  next  to  nothing  the 
result  is  small. 

Tennyson's  "In  Memoriam." 

You  all  know  that  Tennyson  could  not  have  written 
his  "  In  Memoriam  "  had  he  lived  in  the  days  of  Homer 
or  Virgil.  Then  he  would  have  followed  the  flag  of  the 
Ajaxes  and  the  Achilles,  and  have  told  us  how  the  body 
of  Hector  was  dragged  around  the  streets  behind  the 
chariot  of  a  savage  conqueror.  But  Christ  carried  the 
modern  poet  away  from  the  dust-cloud  of  battle  and 
made  him  sing  a  loftier  song.  Great  as  Homer  is,  his 
poetry  has  only  the  attractiveness  of  ambition  and  of  the 
emblazonry  of  arms,  of  the  marshaling  of  troops  on  a 
battle-field,  and  the  whole  pomp  and  circumstance  of 
war.  Great  as  Homer  was,  he  could  not  have  written 
one  verse  of  the  "  In  Memoriam,"  in  all  his  gifted  life. 
The  Christ  had  not  yet  come  to  empty  tlie  urns  of  love, 
and  purity  and  immortality,  into  the  human  heart. 


DAVID   SWING.  167 

Mozart's  Desire. 
'There  was  an  hour  when  Mozart  wished  to  hear  only 
the  Requiem.  Thus  in  the  vast  world  of  thought  there 
are  times  in  the  life  of  each  being,  however  educated  and 
great,  when  the  soul  asks  not  for  argument,  but  for  food; 
not  for  magnificence  of  sound,  but  for  simple  words  of  life 
and  hope.  Christ  is  fortunate  in  that  he  uttered  words 
just  such  as  men  need  in  their  best  hours,  words  not  noisy 
like  a  military  band  cheering  men  onward  to  ambition 
and  bloodshed,  but  sweet  like  a  harp,  helping  the  soul  to 
pass  resignedly  from  these  shores. 

The  Mind  of  God  and  of  His  Children. 
This  strange  wonderment  is  based  upon  the  essential 
oneness  of  all  intelligence.  There  could  not  be  an  intelli- 
gence which  would  not  recognize  the  fact  and  thought  in 
a  circle  traversed  by  diameters.  But  this  leads  to  a 
greater  conclusion — that  the  mind  of  God  and  his  rational 
children  is  one  and  the  same  in  quality,  and  that  therefore 
all  the  good  minds  of  earth  are  faint  photographs  of  that 
intelligence  whence  they  all  came.  What  has  taught  us 
that  man  should  not  kill  his  neighbor  nor  steal  from  his 
neighbor?  It  was  mind  not  long  thinking  that  at  last 
asserted  these  principles.  All  mind  being  one,  these  two 
principles  appearing  upon  earth  tell  us  that  God,  too,  is 
moved  by  the  same  form  of  words;  because  there  cannot 
be  a  mind  which  can  escape  the  figures  and  axioms  of 
either  geometry  or  morals.  It  is  proper,  therefore,  to 
afiirm  that  all  the  good  men  upon  this  planet  are  pointing 
toward  the  character  of  Him  whose  throne  is  in  the  center 
of  this  intellectual  empire. 

Politics. 
Coming  to  politics,  we  see  on  all  sides  in  the  new  free 
governments  of  the  earth,  footprints  of  the  Barons  fight- 


1 68  ECHOES 

ing  with  King  John,  and  of  Washington  and  Lafayette 
struggling  in  the  wilds  of  the  new  world.  The  broad 
earth,  with  all  its  mental  and  emotional  contents,  with 
all  its  truth  and  beauty,  is  only  a  place  where  man  in 
some  form  of  greatness  hss  been.  In  the  old  red  sand- 
stone of  New  England,  rocks  are  pointed  out  upon  which 
gn:at  birds  ran  thousands  of  years  ago.  Perhaps  before 
the  human  race  lived  those  birds  spread  their  half-made 
wings  Bnd  hurried  along  on  foot  before  the  coming 
storm.  And  in  those  days  the  storms  were  terrific. 
The  clouds  swept  hot  and  low,  and  the  whole  earth 
trembled  with  the  thunder.  Along  the  great  western 
river  there  are  cliffs  a  thousand  feet  high,  and  between 
them  a  valley  five  miles  wide,  the  scene  telling  us  what 
a  mighty  river  flowed  in  that  vale  before  man  came  to 
the  Garden  of  Eden.  Thus  the  moral  earth  bears 
evidence  of  its  mighty  past,  and  in  all  its  learning,  and 
politics,  and  art,  and  religion,  say  to  us  :  "  Here  the 
giants  have  been.  These  are  the  paths  trodden  by  their 
heavy  feet." 

The  Beauty  of  Homely  Heroes. 
Art  forgets  that  the  beauty  of  graceful  lines  is  not 
half  so  impressive  as  the  beauty  of  that  marked,  that 
homely  face,  where  the  God-like  energy  of  the  soul 
fought  the  great  battle  of  politics,  liberty,  or  science,  or 
religion.  When  we  remember  what  mighty  works  they 
have  done  and  at  what  a  cost  of  purpose,  we  desire  no 
longer  to  have  the  old  heroes  come  to  us  in  the  likeness 
of  girlhood,  but  in  the  deep  lines  of  power  and  solemnity. 

The  Old  Baleful  Theology. 

Our  age  must  part  company  with  the  baleful  associa- 
tions of  the  old  theology.  A  theology  that  unconsciously 
degraded  the  God  it  loved  ;  it  must  define  religion  to  be, 


DAVID   SWING.  169 

not  a  belief,  but  a  piety  ;  it  must  look  up  to  God  and 
from  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  draw  down  a  religion 
with  the  greatness  of  God  written  all  over  it.  It  must 
hear  that  voice  that  created  all  things  by  the  word  of  its 
power  repeating  the  deep  laws  of  his  temple — a  right- 
eousness that  loves  the  true  and  good  ;  a  faith  that 
guides  ;  a  penitence  that  washes  white  ;  a  love  that  em- 
braces the  world ;  a  hope  that  adds  eternity  to  time, 
paradise  to  earth,  and  a  Christ  the  leader  and  inspiration 
in  the  midst  of  these  doctrines,  and  then  upborne  by 
ideas  so  vast  and  so  true  the  age  may  soon  cease  to  weep 
that  its  temples  do  not  bring  it  a  higher  civilization. 
We  dare  not  make  God  a  party  to  our  petty  warfare  of 
creeds.  We  dare  not  employ  Him  in  our  inquisitions  or 
in  our  debates  over  transubstantiation  or  legitimacy. 
He  must  be  seen  only  as  the  Great  God  sitting  upon  the 
throne  of  justice,  so  lofty,  so  infinite,  that  a  soul  passing 
into  his  temple  will  feel_  that  nothing  but  a  pure  heart 
can  fit  it  for  so  sublime  a  worship. 

Jasper  in  the  Rock  of  Poverty. 
Almost  the  whole  column  of  great  names  stands  upon 
the  bed-rock  of  humble  property.  Our  statesmen,  our 
thinkers,  our  writers,  our  judges  on  the  bench,  our  ora- 
tors, have  all  been  born  poor.  In  all  the  history  of  man 
the  pursuit  of  gold  has  warred  against  the  development 
of  self.  The  rock  of  poverty  seems  hard  and  cold,  but 
within  it  is  jasper. 

Rivalry  instead  of  Worship. 

It  is  now  complained  by  public  men,  men  full  of  fear 
for  our  country  overrun  by  all  forms  of  vice,  that  religion 
is  doing  little  to  purify  the  atmosphere  that  hangs  like  a 
cloud  of  doom  over  our  nation.  How  far  the  Church  at 
large  merits  such  words  of  half  sorrow  and  half  reproach, 


170 


teCHOfiS 


no  one  can  tell;  but  we  feel  fully  ready  to  say  that  the 
more  the  altars  of  human  worship  draw  their  light  and 
inspiration  from  the  character  of  God  alone,  and  linger 
less  around  the  ideas  that  come  only  from  man,  the  more 
rapid  will  be  the  ascent  of  the  nation  toward  a  higher 
life.  Many  an  altar  now  exists  to  which  the  worshipers 
repair,  not  that  they  may  find  holiness,  but  may  keep 
alive  some  ideas  held  by  their  fathers.  A  large  part  of 
church  life  is  only  a  rivalry  about  systems  instead  of  a 
humble  worship  of  God, 

Faith,  Hope  and  Will. 

Faith  and  hope  are  a  great  motive  power  of  the  worl  d 
Along  with  a  powerful  will  they  cast  the  heart  forward. 
But  without  faith  or  hope  the  will  has  no  path  for  its 
mighty  action.  A  large  ship  must  have  a  sea  to  sail  in. 
How  shameful  to  launch  an  ocean-palace  in  only  a  stag- 
nant pond!  So  the  will-power  seen  in  man  begs  for  the 
ocean  of  faith  and  hope.  Such  machinery',  such  masts, 
such  canvas,  demand  that  the  sea  be  deep  and  the  voyage 
long.  Life  has  always  been  compared  to  the  sea.  Accept- 
ing the  figure,  let  us  declare  that  faith  and  hope  are  the 
winds  that  blow  over  it,  not  only  carrying  our  vessels  to 
all  the  ports  of  the  mighty  nations,  but  ruflBing  the 
waters,  making  them  sweet  and  beautiful.  Faith  comes 
into  Christianity  from  the  general  outside  experience 
of  mankind.  It  did  not  originate  in  Christianity  any 
more  than  eloquence  originated  in  politics,  or  color  on 
the  painter's  canvas.  Eloquence  journej-ed  into  the 
political  life  because  great  themes  lay  there  to  be  devel- 
oped, and  colors  lingered  with  Titian  and  Paul  Veronese 
because  they  held  in  their  brains  the  sutject,  and  in  their 
souls  the  taste  that  could  weave  into  matchless  beauty 
the  gaudy  pencils  of  light. 


iDAVID   SWING,  171 

The  Wills  of  the  Rich. 
The  wills  of  the  rich  are  thus  only  penitential  tears 
falling  over  a  misspent  life,  telling  us  not  how  gold 
should  be  employed  after  one  has  gotten  a  million  and 
stands  by  a  grave,  but  how  it  should  be  administered 
when  one's  cheek  is  still  in  bloom  and  the  star  of  the 
soul  shines  out  in  its  first  magnitude. 

The  Bible  Definite  and  Indefinite. 

The  Bible  is  the  most  indefinite  of  books  in  the  delinea- 
tion of  forms,  and  the  most  definite  of  all  books  in  point- 
ing out  the  reward  and  punishment  of  virtue  and  vice. 
Its  baptism  is  obscure;  its  righteousness  is  most  evident. 
Only  a  small  precise  and  trifling  argument  can  find 
Presbyterian  ism  or  the  Episcopacy  in  the  Bible;  but  a 
broad,  visible,  noble  argument,  points  out  the  Savior  of 
mankind.  It  is  only  a  microscopic  analysis  that  can  find 
in  that  book  the  world's  "Confessions  of  Faith,"  but  the 
human  soul  can  not  read  a  page  in  the  book  without  hear- 
ing a  whole  sky-full  of  angels  saying,  "Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart."  The  manner  of  baptism,  the  time,  the 
manner  of  the  Trinity,  the  last  analysis  of  Christ,  the 
presbyter  or  the  bishop,  all  these  and  a  thousand  more 
ideas  lie  in  the  Bible  in  utter  neglect,  because  the  God 
whom  we  worship  has  no  preference  here.  He  cares  not 
what  man  finds  in  the  holy  writings  if  he  only  finds  virtue. 

Wendell  Phillips. 

The  world  is  being  pushed  forward  by  the  actual 
friends  of  the  beautiful,  the  good,  the  true.  The  army 
arrayed  for  war  need  not  be  half  as  large  as  the  army 
arrayed  for  peace.  Some  men  are  made  for  attack, 
Wendell  Phillips  was  fashioned  for  war  against  slavery, 
but  his  tongue  was  made  eloquent  by  all  those  millions 


172 


ECHOES 


of  whites  who  had  worked  out  and  expressed  all  the 
manifold  good  of  liberty.  In  order  that  an  age  may  see 
slaver>'  in  all  its  social  imperfections  it  is  necessarj-  for 
the  same  age  to  see  the  natural  outcome  of  all  culture 
and  freedom.  While  the  poor  slaves  are  living  the  kind 
of  existence  which  reason  would  disprove,  it  is  necessary 
for  some  part  of  the  community  to  live  that  high  intel- 
lectual life  which  reason  would  ask  society  to  prefer.  It 
was  the  fact  that  millions  of  men  and  women  were  living 
such  a  personal,  free  life  that  made  it  possible  for  Mr. 
Phillips  to  be  eloquent.  He  was  indorsed  by  a  great 
fact.  He  was  rescued  from  theological  dogma  and  from 
obscure  metaphysics.  He  was  only  the  utterance  of  his 
age.  He  stood  upon  a  positivism  which  knew  little 
doubt,  but  the  war  of  the  orator  was  no  greater  than  the 
long  peace  of  the  people. 

What   Overtlirew  Slavery? 

What  overthrew  slavery  ?  Some  will  recall  at  once 
the  great  abolitionists  ;  but  those  fighting  intellects  will 
form  only  a  part  of  the  true  reply.  That  institution  fell 
before  the  patriotism  of  the  century.  In  the  former 
periods  slaves  did  all  the  manual  work  of  the  world. 
The  men  who  were  bom  free  were  all  idle.  They  soon 
became  the  victims  of  vice.  What  liberty  there  was  in 
classic  Rome  soon  ended  in  a  corrupt  manhood.  In 
those  long  years  there  were  no  orators  against  human 
bondage  because  the  opposite  of  bondage  had  never  been 
fully  wrought  out.  After  the  blessings  of  freedom  had 
been  fully  revealed  by  the  human  life  in  England  and 
New  England,  it  was  not  difficult  for  a  new  oratory  to 
come.  It  was  the  result  of  a  new  phenomenon  in  human 
experience. 


DAVID   SWIKG.  173 


A  Yastaeas  of  Iiore. 

Pass  from  tlie  Decalogue  to  the  pcAidcal  career  of 
Muses,  and  there  the  same  vastness  appears,  only  it  is 
not  a  vastness  of  intellect,  but  of  love.  He  led  a  lai^e 
multitude  tendexly,  as  though  they  were  his  duldreii. 
By  day  he  advised,  and  dieoied,  and  guided  tlieai ;  by 
night  he  wept  and  prayed. 

The  Pulpit  Knows  but  Irittle. 
The  pulpit  knows  no  more  about  man's  natme,  odgiii, 
and  destin\-,  no  more  about  God  and  heaven  tliaii  is 
known  by  the  lawyer  or  editor,  the  raipeiitfT  or  tte 
btacksmith.  The  hmnan  race  is  noir  so  old  that  what 
infonnalion  its  wise  men  possessed  in  eady  times  aboot 
the  Deity  has  become  wid^  disseminated ;  aKist  pedect- 
ly  mixed  into  the  aveia^  minds  of  any  given  age. 
When  a  few  drops  of  some  xed  substance  aie  let  fidl  into 
a  bottie  of  transparent  water,  the  color  retains  its  isoblion 
for  a  few  moments,  but  time  and  motion  diflbsetiie 
crimson,  and  at  last  the  tianspaient  water  is  gone  and 
the  deep  xed  is  gon^  and  the  volnme  of  fluid  is  all  oae 
unifenn  pink.  Tfans  time  and  tnmnlt  have  made  ns  all 
alike  in  oar  rd^;ioas  knowle^e  and  ignormoe.  The 
ages  have  fJiaken  the  botde  o£  knon^ed^  and  we  aie  all 
(rfneariy  one  color  of  ^uotauce  and  wisdont. 

The  Old  Slave  at  Goat  t^— ^ 

Upon  Goat  Island  in  the  Niagaia,  upon  a  Sond^, 
vears  ago,  I  fiMmd,  hidden  away  at  flbe  root  of  a  tree,  a 
servant  frona  the  hold,  lendi^  in  Ids  Testament  aboot 
the  crwrifiaion-  He  was  an  old  emancipated  slave. 
Upon  beii^  questioned  as  to  wheAer  he  loved  that  pass- 
ageaboieall,  he  said  be  always  cned  o^»er  the  idea  that 
£ar  even  black  men  a  Cfaiist  should  have  died.    I  woo- 


174  ECHOES 

der  whether  any  of  the  formulas  of  men  about  that  death 
could  ever  entice  from  a  slave's  heart  such  a  tribute  oi 
weeping.  Here  a  humble  fugitive  slave  came  to  fulfill 
the  image  of  Tennyson: 

All  subtile  thought,  all  curious  fears, 
Borne  down  by  gladness  so  complete, 
He  bows,  he  bathes  the  Saviour's  feet 
With  costly  spikenard  and  with  tears. 

Roses  of  the  Heart. 

To  one  or  two  spots  in  Central  Africa  beauty  has  in 
truth  come.  But  it  did  not  spring  up  behind  the  recent 
expedition  because  there  was  not  in  that  expedition  no- 
bleness enough  to  sustain  anj'^  roses  of  the  human  heart. 

Beauty  in  Darkest  Africa- 
Beauty  in  Darkest  Africa  waited  for  truth  to  come.  11 
followed  just  as  the  rainbow  follows  the  sun.  In  the 
settlement  of  Blantyre  around  a  church  of  Jesus  Chrisi 
stand  many  neat  homes,  stores,  schools,  and  shops  of  in- 
dustry. Along  with  these  great  thoughts  and  truth' 
came  climbing  roses  for  each  house,  great  beds  of  gera- 
niums, blooming  street,  and  shady  avenues  of  orange 
trees;  all  the  result  of  the  noble  truth  and  love  stored  uj 
in  the  true  missionaries  of  Christian  religion.  To  fe^A 
spots  in  Central  Africa  has  this  beauty  come,  because 
the  most  of  white  men  have  invaded  that  land  in  the 
capacity  of  heartless  adventurers  and  have  not  taken  witt 
them  any  truth  that  could  ever  turn  into  music  or  plant 
a  vine  by  a  window, 

God  is  l/ove. 

A  large  part  of  the  time  of  all  the  philanthropic, 
religious  writers  and  speakers  is  spent  in  the  effort  tc 
prove  and  illustrate   the  goodness  of  God.     All   whc 


DAVID  SWING.  175 

attempt  to  speak  comforting  words  to  the  poor,  or  the  in- 
firm, or  the  unfortunate,  or  the  dying  are  often  weighed 
down  with  the  wish  that  they  could  possess  some  argu- 
ment or  fact  which  might  compel  an  instantaneous  assent 
to  the  idea  that  God  is  an  infinite  love.  That  old  search 
for  an  elixir  which  would  keep  man  from  dying  has 
failed  so  long  and  so  utterly  that  it  has  been  wholly 
abandoned.  No  one  any  longer  expects  to  escape  that 
final  frost  which  in  the  long  past  has  touched  and 
silenced  so  many  hearts.  Some  years  ago  Mr.  Bancroft 
wrote  to  a  public  man  and  friend:  "Being  more  than 
four  score  years  old,  I  know  that  my  release  (from  labor) 
will  soon  come.  Conscious  of  being  near  the  shore  of 
eternity,  I  await  without  impatience  and  without  dread 
the  beckoning  of  that  hand  which  will  summon  me  to 
rest."  Such  a  thought  passes  at  some  hour  through 
each  heart.  No  one  expects  to  escape  the  beckoning 
hand.  The  human  family  having  failed  to  find  a  spring 
or  a  divine  dewdrop  or  a  magical  plant  which  might 
render  man  immortal.  The  next  best  medicine  it  seeks 
is  some  assurance  that  God  is  love.  The  alchemists 
have  handed  man's  tears  over  to  the  theologian.  Science, 
unable  to  dry  up  those  tears  or  to  analyze  them,  hands 
the  sufferer  over  to  the  care  of  those  who  believe  in  a 
supreme  creator. 

Obedience  to  I^aw. 

All  the  forms  of  life  created  in  and  for  this  world  were 
made  to  move  in  obedience  to  certain  laws.  The  bird 
must  have  the  appetite  and  the  undipped  wing.  The  ox 
must  have  the  field  of  grass.  The  fish  must  have  the 
water  for  its  home.  All  these  simple  forms  of  existence 
assure  us  that  man,  too,  has  his  ways  of  being,  and 
while  knowledge  will  point  it  out  to  him  all  these  God- 


176  ECHOES 

made  paths,  liberty  must  permit  him  to  move  into  them 
and  along  their  entire  length.  When  a  nation  closes 
these  paths  it  is  not  the  friend  of  man  ;  it  is  only  an 
enemy.  Such  nations  have  been  made,  not  out  of  the 
philosophy  of  mankind,  but  out  of  absolute  power. 
They  stand  as  monuments  of  the  place  where  humanity 
fell.  The  most  of  thrones  have  stood  in  memory  of 
desolated  races  and  centuries. 


Relations  involve  Duties. 

All  relations  involve  duties.  A  citizen,  a  father,  a 
friend,  a  painter,  a  poet,  must  confess  duties  that  spring 
up  from  the  peculiar  qualities  that  give  him  the  special 
name. 

^  Nationalism. 

Nationalism  being  such  a  pre-eminent  idea,  that  will 
be  the  true  and  good  nation  which  shall  open  and  keep 
open  the  most  gates  of  good  to  all  its  citizens.  A  glance 
at  Selkirk  in  his  island  will  inscantly  convince  one  that 
the  design  of  a  state  is  helpfulness.  Its  purpose  is  to 
throw  around  each  citizen  all  that  a  mind  needs.  If  a 
mind  needs  learning,  music,  eloquence,  wisdom,  art, 
science,  house,  furniture,  protection,  the  nation  is  a  vast, 
almost  omnipotent,  committee  of  ways  and  means  to  the 
desired  ends. 

What  a  Vision  for  Isaiah  and  John ! 

Could  all  the  worthies,  from  Isaiah  to  St.  John,  have 
drawn  aside  the  veil  of  the  future,  and  have  seen  what  a 
mighty  part  in  far-off  nations  their  words  were  to  play  ; 
could  the  prophet  have  heard  the  Christians  of  the  nine- 


DAVID  SWING.  177 

teenth  century  reading  his  word  picture  of  the  Redeemer, 
and  could  St.  John  have  seen  millions  in  the  coming 
America  poring  over  his  fourteenth  chapter,  they  might 
eaisly  have  endured  all  possible  sorrows  in  view  of  the 
harvest  in  religion  to  wave  on  far-oflf  shores.  But  before 
them  laj^  the  clouds  that  always  shut  off  the  future. 
They  saw  not  the  sublime  reality.  They  walked  in  the 
solemnity  of  darkness,  and  as  one  by  one  they  came  to 
death,  their  mighty  souls  fed  not  upon  sight,  but  upon 
the  heroism  of  a  lofty  faith.  As  Washington's  heart 
often  sunk  in  the  days  of  the  Revolution,  and  as  another 
President  in  our  more  recent  trials  often  found  the  heav- 
ens dark  above  him  and  piteously  prayed  for  help,  so  we 
know  that  at  times  the  saints  of  the  New  Testament 
must  have  looked  with  sadness  into  each  other's  faces 
and  have  wondered  whether  just  beyond  the  tomb  Jesus 
would  indeed  come  with  His  Paradise.  And  especially 
must  these  solemn  thoughts  have  come  crowding  into 
the  heart  when  upon  the  next  day  death  was  to  come  by 
the  fagot  or  the  axe. 

Full  Permission  to  be  Bducated. 

To  have  full  permission  to  acquire  an  education,  per- 
mission to  work  and  use  the  money  which  work  brings, 
to  have  full  access  to  nature,  to  books  and  art,  to  be  free 
to  point  a  telescope  at  the  stars  and  learn  whether  the 
earth  moves,  free  to  study  electricity  as  a  Franklin,  or 
the  steamboat  as  a  Fulton,  or  history  as  a  Bancroft — this 
is  that  infinite  privilege  called  liberty.  It  is  too  great  to 
be  defined,  because  to  measure  it.  it  would  be  necessary 
to  enumerate  all  the  blessings  of  all  times.  As  the  eagle 
must  be  free  to  use  its  wings,  so  man  must  be  free  to  use 
his  soul.  Liberty  includes  all  the  utility  and  beauty  oi 
our  race. 


178  _  ECHOES 

Christmas  a  Supplement  to  the  Arts- 
Christmas  is  a  great  supplement  to  the  arts.  It  gathers 
up  a  world  of  beauty,  which  had  to  be  passed  by  all  the 
Angelos.  Marble  and  cameos  could  not  contain  it  all; 
music  could  not  express  it  all.  Art  can  not  express  the 
children  which  wake  before  light  and  wonder  if  it  is  too 
soon  to  get  up.  Art  can  not  delineate  beauty  in  the 
darkness.  Art  is  careful  about  high  lights.  It  can  not 
deal  with  a  room  in  which  not  even  a  candle  burns,  and 
where  the  waking  child  can  not  distinguish  a  chair  from 
the  spirit  of  Kris-Kinkle.  Music  can  not  gather  up  the 
sounds  of  such  a  midwinter  morning.  Beethoven  held  in 
his  brain  a  grand  power,  but  it  was  not  broad  and  elastic 
enough  to  take  in  the  shouts  and  laughter  and  gratitude 
of  these  December  hearts.  What  can  music  do  with  the 
sounds  of  little  feet  upon  the  morning  stairs!  What  can 
music  do  when  the  child  opens  a  box  and  finds  in  it  the 
blessing  it  had  requested  the  Christmas  angel  to  bring? 
The  greatest  move  along  grandly,  but  they  omit  more  of 
human  life  than  they  express.  As  the  architects  builds 
cathedrals,  palaces,  theaters,  and  capitols,  but  do  not 
construct  the 'little  home  whence  issue  a  Lincoln  or  a 
Burns,  or  a  Franklin  or  a  Shakespeare,  nor  the  manger 
or  the  cottage  of  a  Jesus,  so  all  the  arts  combined  are 
able  only  to  touch  the  shore  of  man's  world.  They  do 
not  live  with  him  and  gather  up  all  his  thoughts  and 
emotions.  Christmas  gathers  up  a  thousand  spiritual 
charms  which  the  proud  art  pass  by.  It  is  a  beautiful 
Ruth  gleaning  in  a  field  where  the  sheaves  that  are  left 
by  the  reapers  are  as  numerous  as  those  that  are  gathered. 


DAVID   SWING.  179 

The   Arts. 

It  would  be  a  great  loss  to  the  heart  if  truth  was  limited 
to  only  the  decorations  of  the  four  great  arts.  Archi- 
tecture can  utter  a  few  words  only  in  the  name  of  religion; 
the  sculptor  only  a  few;  the  painter  only  a  few.  Music 
can  say  more  than  any  sister  art;  but,  after  all  the 
musicians  have  used  their  many  tones,  much  remains  still 
unexpressed,  and  the  mighty  ideas  of  religion  must  look 
to  still  other  forms  of  language.  The  language  of  the  three 
maternal  arts  is  small  when  compared  with  that  language 
the  mind  and  heart  can  speak  through  words  and  actions. 
What  can  architecture,  sculpture  and  painting  do  for  our 
children,  or  say  to  them?  Can  those  arts  see  them  wake 
in  the  morning  to  find  what  the  reindeer  and  sleigh  may 
have  brought  them  in  the  night?  Can  the  common  arts 
laugh  and  play  with  the  young?  Can  they  rear  an  ever- 
green tree  and  make  it  bear  such  rich  gifts  as  to  weigh 
down  the  graceful  branches?  Can  the  sonatas  or  the 
orchestras  build  a  Christmas  fire?  Could  they  touch 
November  with  a  blest  anticipation  and  make  the  snow 
of  December  change  that  month  into  something  more 
beautiful  than  May?  Christmas  came  slowly  as  a  much- 
needed  decoration  of  the  broad  truths  which  pass  along 
under  the  name  of  mankind  and  religion. 

The  Highest  Utterance  of  Atheism. 

A  most  pronounced  and  active  Atheist  printed  these 
words  last  autumn:  "Chemistry  is  the  only  and  true 
God.  No,  this  also  is  not  God;  it  is  chemistry.  It 
moves  worlds,  systems,  oceans,  rocks,  trees,  men,  society, 
commerce,  all."  "There  is  no  God!  There  is  no  agent, 
being,  or  God  exterior  or  superior  to  the  world.  It  is 
eternal,    self-acting,    self-existing    and    self-sufiicient." 


l8o  ECHOES 

Such  is  the  very  highest  utterance  of  all  atheism;  but 
inasmuch  as  all  chemistry  begins  its  task  in  the  infinite- 
esinial  atom,  the  mind  which  adopts  it  is  forbidden  to  use 
higher  than  its  fountain.  Atheism  thus  begins  and  ends 
in  an  atom,  and  while  logically  not  superior  to  Deism,  it 
it  infinitely  below  Deism,  in  its  mental  and  emotional 
affiliations. 

God  Cares  Nothing  for  the  Minutiae  of  Worship. 

Much  of  the  indefiniteness  of  the  Bible  comes  from  the 
fact  that  God  cares  nothing  for  the  minutiae  of  human 
worship.  There  is  nothing  definite  in  the  Bible  except 
the  picture  of  Christ  leading  man  to  virtue,  because  the 
greatness  of  God  forbids  that  He  should  care  for  aught 
beside.  To  suppose  the  Creator  of  the  universe  to  have 
a  choice  between  immersion  and  sprinkling,  to  suppose 
the  Almighty  to  be  partial  to  a  posture  in  prayer,  to 
suppose  Him  to  have  a  choice  between  a  government  of 
bishops  and  a  government  by  all  the  clergy,  to  inquire 
whether  the  Infinite  One  loves  better  the  robes  of  the 
priest  or  the  plain  dress  of  the  citizen — this  is  to  degrade 
the  name  of  God  and  to  drag  worship  down  to  the  level 
of  a  court  etiquette. 

Washington. 

Washington  did  not  discover  or  invent  Washington  lib- 
erty. Humanity  had  dreamed  of  it  and  toiled  toward  it  in 
all  history,  but  the  thrones  had  the  money  and  the  soldiers, 
and  the  people  were  hurled  back  as  often  as  they  assailed 
the  throne.  But  after  the  late  three  or  four  centuries 
had  made  a  more  general  distribution  of  education  and 
wealth,  the  hurling  back  of  the  people  became  more  and 


DAVID    SWING.  l8l 

more  difficult.  The  thought  in  the  common  minds 
became  deeper,  and  their  blows  heavier.  Out  of  each 
conflict  of  late  times  the  throne  emerged  shaken  and 
weakened. 

The  Modern  Girl's  Indebtedness. 

The  modern  girl  is  indebted  to  her  nation  for  her 
language,  literature,  art,  and  religion,  even  for  the 
roses  on  her  cheek  and  the  height  and  purity  of  her 
forehead.  It  has  been  this  inexpressible  value  of  na- 
tional life  that  has  made  the  citizen  of  all  times  willing  to 
die  for  his  country. 

livery  Heart  Has  Thoughts. 

The  men  who  are  reported  as  having  boasted  that  they 
have  not  been  in  a  church  for  thirty  j^ears  because  no 
preacher  knows  more  than  they  themselves  have  already 
in  their  own  brains,  have  in  some  manner  escaped  that 
pleasure  which  comes  from  having  some  one  take  the 
trouble  of  summing  up  for  us  what  we  already  know. 
Every  heart  has  thoughts,  but  they  often  become  un- 
strung or  stored  away  and  neglected.  Along  comes 
some  one  with  the  peculiar  taste  and  the  patience  that 
can  call  in  all  these  lost  thoughts  and  make  them  sing 
again  their  sweet  music  in  the  mind. 

All  Mind  in  One. 

It  is  not  necessarj'  to  ask  the  Bible  whether  man  was 
made  in  the  image  of  God,  for  we  know  this  without  any 
aid  from  an  alleged  revelation.  There  can  be  only  one 
kind  of  mind  in  all  the  universe.  There  can  not  be  an 
intellect  which  might  sa^^  that  twice  two  are  three,  or 
that  parallel  lines  will  cross  each  other  at  last.  All  mind 
is  one. 


l82  ECHOES 

Woman  in  Japan. 

In  Japan  the  condition  of  woman  is  one  of  such  sub- 
jection and  such  general  degredation  that  no  public  man 
or  local  poet  or  dreamer  can  see  anywhere  any  high  and 
noble  womanhood.  The  problem  of  that  land  would  be 
to  find  the  first  part  of  the  new  fact. 

Truer  Thoughts  of  God. 

We  do  not  see  the  character  of  God  changing  from 
generation  to  generation,  but  we  do  see  the  human  race 
rising  in  its  power  to  estimate  the  sublime  facts  of  the 
whole  kingdom.  A  race  which  has  doubled  over  and 
over  again  its  estimate  of  music  and  all  beauty,  all  truth 
and  liberty — shall  it  not  reach,  step  by  step,  abetter 
portraiture  of  that  vast  mind  which  created  all  things  ? 
When  you  look  back  into  history  you  perceive  that  once 
God  was  power.  How  He  could  smite  the  Amonites  and 
the  Amalekites  !  How  in  Greek  thought  He  moved  as  a 
dark  fate  !  How  in  the  Roman  religion  He  thundered  as 
Jove  !  How  in  Calvin's  time  He  was  still  awful  in 
wrath  !  But  in  late  years  the  human  mind  has  advanced 
toward  a  higher  estimate  of  its  own  virtues  and  just  so 
far  to  higher  estimate  of  the  Deity. 

We  Can  Not  Escape  the  Great  Problem. 

No  one  need  turn  away  from  the  idea  of  a  God  because 
the  thought  seems  hopeless  in  its  vastness  and  many- 
sided  mystery,  for  there  is  no  other  thought  that  promises 
any  smoother  way  for  logic  or  any  more  peace  for  the 
heart.  We  can  not  escape  the  problem  contained  in  man 
and  the  world.     Man  and  the  world  are  both  here. 


DAVID    SWING.  183 

Danger  Ahead. 
Weary  of  asking  what  is  creation  ?  what  is  life  ?  what 
is  religion  ?  what  is  beauty  ?  the  living  multitude  finds 
its  happiness  in  the  phenomena  of  the  actual  being, 
actual  beauty,  actual  religion  and  existence.  Under  its 
conduct  there  may  be  indeed  some  mistake  but  it  takes 
the  world  for  better  or  worse,  for  richer  or  poorer. 
There  is  danger  now  that  the  great  enemies  of  wrongs 
and  vices  will  grow  so  conspicuous  that  they  will  hide 
those  who  'are  toiling  upon  the  postive  side  of  civiliz- 
ation. Those  clergymen  are  valuable  who  are  assailing 
the  gamblers  and  the  many  swarms  of  men  who  live  by 
plundering  the  people.  Bold,  useful  men  are  these 
preachers  in  whatever  city  they  may  live  and  fight,  but 
they  must  not  conceal  from  us  those  who  are  presenting 
daily  the  postive  side  of  all  good  society.  The  gambler's 
table,  the  den  of  infamy  do  not  concern  all  the  millions 
directly.  Unhappy  world  if  it  had  no  profession  except 
that  of  the  doctor  !  for  we  are  all  laboring  under  disease  ; 
and  many  v/ho  are  ill  expect  to  be  out  in  a  few  days. 
Doctors  are  demanded  by  the  bad  days  of  the  few,  but 
what  must  be  said  about  the  well  days  of  the  vast  mul- 
titude ?  Thus  the  assults  on  gamblers  and  on  the  prize- 
fights between  men  and  between  brutes  are  not  to  be 
thought  the  measure  of  modern  progress. 

The  Task  of  Author  and  Orator. 

A  large  part  of  the  task  of  each  writer  and  speaker  is 
to  tell  men  and  women  what  they  already  know  and 
have  nearly  forgotten. 

The  Bible  All  Glorious. 

With  the  great  public  heart  for  its  interpreter,  that 
book  stands  to-day  all  glorious  in  its  kindness  and  light. 
The  common  people  come  to  it  not  with  their  elaborate 


l84  ECHOES 

systems,  but  with  their  sins  that  need  forgiveness,  and 
their  sorrows  that  need  a  cure.  The  theoretic  scholars 
approach  the  Bible  as  critics,  desiring  to  build  up  a 
theory  or  tear  down  one,  and  the  skeptical  world  at  large 
reads  it  only  as  a  lawyer  weighs  evidence  ;  but  what  we 
call  the  humbler  classes,  scattered  all  through  the  wide 
land,  living  here  in  a  cabin,  there  in  a  cottage,  or  acting 
as  servants  of  the  rich,  or  sailing  in  ships  upon  the  sea, 
or  swinging  the  axe  in  the  forest,  come  to  the  Book  at 
times  because  the  issues  of  life  and  death  are  there.  By 
the  time  this  numerous  multitude  shall  have  reached  a 
higher  intellectual  development,  the  present  form  of 
skepticism  will  have  passed  away,  perhaps,  and  there 
will  be  thousands  of  citizens  who  will  never  have  suffered 
from  its  blight.     The  basis  of  doubt  is  always  changing. 

An  Infinite  and  Bternal  God. 

An  infinite  and  eternal  God  is  only  one  more  of  these 
intellectual  difficulties,  and  inasmuch  as  time  and  space 
although  intellectually  impossible,  rise  up  before  us  and 
around  us  as  emblazoned  facts,  thus  the  idea  of  God  can 
easily  lift  itself  up  out  of  the  dark  sea  of  the  mysterious 
and  arise  the  richest,  greatest  fact  of  the  entire  realm  of 
truth.  Those  who  have  been  on  a  stormj'  ocean  at  mid- 
night and  have  gone  upon  the  deck  to  feel  the  awful 
darkness  and  solitude  of  the  hour,  have  felt  as  though  no 
sun  could  ever  rise  upon  such  a  vast  black  mass  and 
make  the  scene  one  of  light,  each  billow  a  thing  ot 
grandeur,  each  wave-crest  the  lace  work  made  by  the 
fingers  of  the  joyous  light.  Thus  man  in  his  dark  night 
of  many  limitations  may  feel  that  no  God  is  near  or  can 
come  near  so  much  flesh  and  dust,  and  yet  in  the  long 
hour  of  doubt  He  is  near,  just  ready  to  rise  up  before  His 
children.     If  atheism  cannot  remove  our  logical  difficult- 


DAVID  SWING.  185 

ies  about  time  and  space,  wliy  slioukl  it  ask  us  to  yield 

to  an)'  intellectual  difficulty  regarding  our  God  ?      If  our 

mental  pains  are  all  transcended  by  time  and  space  we 

should  much  more  expect  them  to  be  transcended  by  the 

doctrine   of  a   God.     But,  as   in  space  we  see  the   tree 

stand,  the  bird  fly  and  the  clouds  float,  as  in  time  we  hear 

our  clock  strike  or  count  our  heart  beats,  so  in  religion, 

living  or  dying  man  may  rest  his  head  upon  the  bosom  of 

God.     The  incomprehensibility  of  God  is  no  barrier  in 

the  way  of  human   faith    and  love.     As   the  infinite  of 

time  does  not  debar  us  from  accepting  as  a  blind  reality 

each  passing  day  so  the  infinite  of  the  Deity  need  not 

cast  a  shadow  of  doubt  upon  the  fact  of  such  a  heavenly 

Father. 

Christ  a  "Wide.  Deep,  Moral  World. 

Christ  is  a  wide,   deep,  moral   world.     He   who  finds 

only  one  idea  or  one  beauty  in  Christ,  is  one  who  should 

find  upon  earth  only  one  plan,  and  in  the  heavens  only 

one  fount  of  cloud  or  light.     It  is  an  injurious  human 

weakness  if  we  say  Christ  is  divine,  and  then  feel  that 

we  have  found  all  this   divinity  in  the  atonement  or  in 

the  resurrection.     Thus  have  we  put  Deity  into  a  narrow 

cell,   too  narrow   to   be  even  fully   human,    much   less 

divine.     That  which  we  call  divine  must  overflow.     It 

must  not  run  like  a  rivulet,  but  roll  like  the  sea.     There 

are  myriads  of  persons  who  cannot  accept  of  Christ  as  an 

atonement,  but  who  are  drawing  the  guidance  and  the 

hope  of  life  from    His  words  and   actions.     There   are 

others   who  identify   Christ   and   the   Father,    and   are 

blessed   with   this   nearness  of  God  ;    while   there   are 

others  who  feel  that  Christ  is  only  a  super-human  being, 

but  who  undergo  an  exaltation  of  character  by  following 

this  lofty  ideal.     Little  children  find  in  Christ  an  image 

of  their  own  spirit. 


l86  ECHOES 

So  I^ong !  and  Yet  so  Ignorant. 
It  seems  almost  incredible  that  man  lives  so  long  in  a 
world  without  knowing  what  the  world  is  or  what  he 
himself  may  be.  He  reads  that  God  made  everything 
beautiful  in  its  time,  but  he  does  not  state  what  God  is, 
or  what  beauty  is,  or  what  time  is.  But  he  emerges 
from  this  cloud  of  ignorance  and  affirms  that  the  un- 
known God  has  made  every  unknown  thing  possess  its 
unknown  beauty  in  its  unknown  time.  Oppressed  by  so 
much  ignorance,  the  Berkeley  school  of  philosophers 
declared  that  nothing  exists  except  mind  ;  that  what 
seems  an  external  world  is  only  the  creation  of  a  mind 
that  is  living  as  in  a  dream.  Nearly  all  the  civilized 
millions  accept  of  the  daily  phenomena  as  facts,  and  are 
content  to  rest  in  the  common  assumed  realism  of  beauty 
and  of  absolute  days  and  years.  The  fact  that  the  in- 
finite is  beyond  man's  reach  must  not  prevent  him  from 
dealing  with  these  pieces  of  the  infinite  which  lie  before 
his  feet.  Man  in  his  world  is  as  the  early  settlers  on  the 
Mississippi,  who  enjoyed  and  used  the  river  without 
knowing  about  its  mouth  or  its  fountains.  They  used  it 
as  a  great  passing  reality.  Without  knowing  all,  they 
detected  the  difference  between  the  river  and.  the  land, 
and  built  their  boats  for  the  one  and  their  wagons  for 
the  other.  We  do  not  know  what  beauty  is,  but  we  do 
know  that  it  is  unlike  ugliness  ;  that  the  eight  notes  do 
not  sound  like  the  other  noises  of  the  world,  and  that 
the  face  of  the  Madonna  is  unlike  the  face  of  the  ape  or 
of  the  African  bushman.  The  fact  smites  our  heart 
with  resistless  power,  and  we  are  glad  to  say  that  God 
made  the  world  and  filled  it  with  a  tendency  toward  the 
beautiful. 


DAVID  SWING.  187 

The  Justice  of  Jesus  Christ. 
The  justice  of  Jesus  Christ  is  that  justice  of  which  the 
tragedies  of  Shakespeare  are  a  faint  image,  and  which  has 
been  reflected  in  the  laws  of  states,  and  has  always  been 
imbedded  in  the  soul.  Oh,  sad  day  for  the  Church  and 
for  human  virtue  when  the  teachers  of  Christianity  turned 
away  from  the  broad  and  simple  Christ  and  asked  the 
metaphysicians,  and  monks,  and  fatalists,  to  give  them 
a  detailed  map  of  the  Infinite  One.  A  Roman  priest  not 
long  since  permitted  a  convert  from  Protestantism  to 
bury  his  infant  along  with  the  Protestant  dead  if  he 
would  enclose  in  the  little  coffin  a  lump  of  consecrated 
earth,  to  guard  the  little  Catholic  soul  from  sharing  in 
the  Protestant  hell.  So  the  little  holy  earth  was  placed 
in  the  coffin  to  come  between  the  infant  and  divine  wrath. 
And  a  few  weeks  since  Archbishop  Purcell,  in  speaking 
of  a  railway  workman  killed  in  an  accident,  who  had, 
being  a  Protestant,  lived  happily  with  a  Catholic  wife, 
said  that  the  children  of  that  poor  widow  were  not  only 
fatherless,  but  were  doomed  to  predition  at  last,  for 
Heaven  could  receive  only  the  families  of  the  purely 
Catholic. 

Christmas  and  the  Children. 

Christmas  rallies  its  brilliant  troops  around  the  cradle 
of  Christ.  It  is  not  certain  of  the  cradle,  but  it  is  certain 
about  the  happy  element  in  Christianity.  It  is  enough 
that  one  was  born  who  took  little  children  up  in  his  arms 
and  who  would  have  taken  up  all  the  children  of  all 
places  and  all  ages  could  His  life  have  been  lived  every- 
where. He  did  not  know  those  little  children.  He 
blessed  them  only  because  they  were  children.  There- 
fore, all  the  children  of  all  times  share  in  that  bene- 


1 88  ECHOES 

diction.  It  falls  upon  America  just  as  it  fell  upon  Judea. 
No  child  need  live  by  these  lakes  or  in  the  lonely 
prairies  without  hearing  the  same  voice  saying  to  it : 
"  Come  unto  me.  No  one  dares  forbid  you."  When  it 
is  remembered  that  such  an  invitation  implied  an  escape 
from  sin  and  tears,  an  passing  into  a  life  of  usefulness, 
and  a  final  ascent  to  heaven,  it  must  be  confessed  that 
the  birthday  of  such  a  friend  should  be  ushered  in  with 
many  a  ringing  bell,  and  many  a  song,  and  with  the 
joyful  shouts  of  the  faithful  millions. 

The  Church  the  Moral  Hope  of  the  Land. 

An  enforced  reading  of  the  Bible  would  only  make  its 
pages  absolutely  hateful  to  Catholic  and  Jew  and 
skeptic,  and  thus  as  legal  power  should  come  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  book,  its  intrinsic  moral  power  would  pass 
away.  For  many  reasons  the  Bible  will  be  withdrawn 
from  the  public  schools  as  rapidly  as  any  religious 
opposition  may  demand  such  a  withdrawal,  and  in  a  few 
years  the  Church  will  remain  the  chief  moral  hope  of 
the  country. 

Why  Not  Accept  a  Deity? 

Why  not  most  cordially  espouse  the  assumption  of  a 
Deity  ?  The  greatness  of  such  a  Being  is  no  hindrance 
to  faith,  for  the  universe  does  not  teach  anything  else 
than  greatness.  Having  seen  the  ocean  in  peace  and  in 
storm,  having  seen  the  sun  and  moon  encompass  our 
earth  as  marvelous  lamps,  having  learned  that  the  sun 
has  been  flinging  out  light  and  heat  for  millions  of  years, 
having  learned  that  there  are  millions  of  such  suns,  per- 
ceiving that  man  is  a  mind  that  can  study  such  a  uni- 


DAVID   SWING.  l8g 

verse  and  can  trace,  measure,  and  weigh  these  distant 
orbs,  the  heart  need  not  expect  the  God  of  such  a  scene 
to  pass  alone  in  the  likeness  of  a  man  or  a  bird,  or  even 
an  angel  with  wings.  How  can  the  mind  turn  from  a 
half-hour  of  thought  in  astronomy,  in  whose  heavens  are 
seen  gigantic  worlds  whirling  in  space  like  insects  in  a 
sunbeam;  orbs  a  million  miles  in  diameter  and  lighting 
up  systems  as  an  electric  lamp  lights  up  a  little  library 
or  bed-chamber;  orbs  in  the  light  of  which  a  moral  and 
thinking  form  of  life  can  read  a  book  at  the  distance  of 
ninety-five  millions  of  miles  from  the  lamp — how  turn 
from  globes  which  run  fifty  or  a  hundred  thousand  miles 
an  hour,  and  yet  carrying  gently  the  trembling  dew- 
drop  and  the  waking  or  sleeping  forms  of  life;  orbs  which 
perhaps  support  a  human  race  on  their  bosom,  and  never 
change  their  speed  a  second  in  a  thousand  years — how 
turn  from  these  things  and  expect  God  to  be  anything 
like  the  ruler  of  a  city  or  a  sacred  cow  of  the  East  or  the 
sacred  reptiles  of  old  Egypt  ?  It  is  necessary  that  the 
creator  of  such  a  stupendous  scene  should  transcend  all 
thought  and  move  before  man  a  perpetual  depth  and 
height  wholly  immeasurable. 

Augusta  Cotttte. 

This  generation  is  a  positivism,  but  it  adds  to  the  cold 
data  of  August  Comte  the  warm  world  of  sentiment 
and  religion.  It  moves  away  from  theological  assump- 
tion and  from  metaphysical  obscurities,  but  it  confesses 
the  religious  sentiment  and  the  sentiment  of  beauty  and 
right  and  wrong  to  be  just  as  real  as  the  rocks  and  hills. 
Some  forms  of  religion  may  contain  falsehoods,  but 
religion  is  real ;  some  things  of  alleged  beauty  may  be 
ugly,  but  there  remains  in  the  world  a  real  beauty, 
these  facts  compose  the  motive  and  the  consolation  o. 


IQO  ECHOES 

our  times.  Religion,  politics  and  social  life  are  studying 
them  just  as  patiently  and  hopefully  as  ever  inventors 
pursued  the  study  of  mechanical  powers  of  nature.  All 
are  attempting  to  master  and  love  the  positive  side  of  the 
world. 

Ignorance  of  the  World. 

The  common  practical  mind  knows  nothing  about 
God's  world.  It  moves  about  in  the  market  place,  and 
stands  in  its  shop  all  day  and  all  year,  utterly  incapable 
of  thinking  of  the  whole  heavens  and  the  whole  earth. 
It  knows  the  numbers  of  its  own  family  and  the  value  of 
certain  articles  in  the  market.  But  along  comes  the  man 
with  imagination,  and  lo,  the  universe  opens  its  gates  to 
his  foot.  His  heart  wanders  off  into  the  eternity  past  and 
to  come.  He  becomes  a  Newton  or  a  Herschel  in  astron- 
omy, or  a  Humboldt  in  science,  or  a  Cousin  in  morals, 
or  a  Milton  in  poetry.  Among  these  place  the  men  who 
wrote  the  book  of  Job  or  the  Psalms,  or  the  glowing 
rhapsodies  of  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel.  Who  in  our  day  could 
surpass  these  voices  in  the  richness  of  their  imagination 
and  in  the  sublimity  of  their  song  ? 

Religion  Must  Work  by  l/ove. 

Religion,  from  its  very  nature,  must  work  its  way 
forward  only  by  love.  Its  power  lies  not  in  legislatures, 
but  in  persuasion,  and  the  more  gently  the  Bible  comes 
to  people's  homes  and  to  the  children,  the  more  divine 
will  the  book  appear. 

The  Torn  Page. 

A  youth  just  learning  to  read  and  love  the  wonders  of 
the  printed  Imes,  found  by  the  wayside  a  page  torn  from 
some  volume.      He  read  and  came   upon   name  after 


DAVID   SWING.  191 

name,  and  thought  after  thought,  but  all  was  injured  by 
the  fact  that  he  had  only  a  page.  The  story  aroused 
him,  but  all  that  awakened  interest  only  changed  into  a 
youthful  longing  and  unrest.  After  months  he  came 
upon  an  old  man  who  told  him  from  what  grand  poem 
the  page  had  come.  The  book  secured,  the  heart  found 
its  peace  and  perfect  joy.  Thus  have  you  all  found  some 
middle  pages  from  some  unknown  book.  Even  the  long 
life  of  George  Bancroft  was  only  a  single  chapter  from 
some  great  volume.  All  that  you  can  each  do  is  to  read 
well  and  lovingly  your  pages  found  in  the  great  field, 
and  then  wait  calmly  for  the  coming  of  someone  who  can 
open  before  your  joyful  eyes  the  whole  richly  wrought 
volume  with  its  complete  story  of  man  aud  his  God. 


If  Christ  were  Here  Now. 

'  'What  would  Christ  do  were  he  to  live  and  act  in  this 
city  ?"  The  question  is  fair,  because  it  simply  asks  what 
our  whole  world  most  needs.  The  man  of  Nazareth 
would  make  a  wonderful  revolution  in  our  world  if  he 
should  persude  us  all  to  live  up  to  our  knowledge.  If 
the  mind  believes  in  temperance,  in  justice,  in  benevo- 
lence, in  iridu.stry,  in  perfect  honor,  in  physical  and  moral 
beauty,  then  all  that  remains  is  to  make  each  day  over- 
flow with  the  obedience  of  these  rich  truths.  Christ 
would  be  a  divine  friend  could  he  do  away  with  the 
distance  between  human  philosophj^  and  human  life.  He 
need  not  check  the  understanding.  He  need  only  help 
the  heart  to  catch  up.  The  matchless  beauty  of  Jesus 
lay  not  chiefly  in  the  ethics  which  was  stored  in  his 
mind — an  ethics  so  perfect,  so  universal,  so  divine,  but 
it  lay  also  in  the  f£.ct  that  his  philosophy  did  not  outrun 


192 


ECHOES 


his  soul.  His  oratory  was  the  photograph  of  his  life. 
His  voice  was  like  the  murmur  of  the  sea,  which  is  not 
nearly  so  great  as  the  sea  itself.  His  words  were  few, 
his  conduct  vast.  We  reverse  the  picture  and  follow  our 
gigantic  philosophy  with  a  microscopic  life.  And  yet 
the  fact  that  we  excel  the  negroes  and  the  Indians  proves 
that  when  the  mind  climbs  to  a  height  the  heart  also 
creeps  up  out  of  the  valley.  In  the  Son  of  God  the  in- 
tellect and  the  soul  were  companions.  They  were  insepar- 
able. The  wreaths  for  the  forehead  of  Jesus  were  wreaths 
for  the  heart.  Great  men  like  Emerson  and  Whittier 
and  Gladstone  are  persons  in  whom  mind  and  heart  are 
both  one.  In  Jesus  the  thought  could  not  outrun  the 
love. 

How  the  Greeks  l/oved  Greece. 

The  Greeks  loved  their  own  state  to  such  a  degree 
that  citizens  thought  it  a  matter  of  reproach  to  visit  any 
outside  land.  To  the  polite  Athenian  foreign  travel  was 
a  disgrace,  unless  the  journey  were  made  on  some 
business  account.  To  go  abroad  was  to  confess  the 
imperfection  of  home.  That  magnificent  breadth  of 
brain  and  affection  that  grasps  a  whole  human  race,  bond 
and  free,  high  and  low,  is  first  seen  in  the  great  mission- 
ary to  the  Gentiles. 

A  Thousand  Blessed  Years. 

The  holy  writers  said  those  blessed  years  would  be  a 
thousand,  but  we  see  the  poetry  of  the  specified  number, 
and  at  once  transform  the  period  into  a  gigantic  future 
of  earth,  and  into  an  immortality  beyond.  So  slowly 
moves  God's  law  that  when  this  better  day  shall  dawn 
none  of  us  will  be  here.  Your  youngest  children  will  be 
in  this  planet  seventy  or  eighty  years  from  to-day,  and 


DAVID   SWING.  193 

will  see  much  more  of  beauty  and  virtue  than  has  trailed 
rich  colors  along  before  our  eyes  so  soon  to  close,  but 
beyond  the  graves  of  our  children  God's  law  will  gn  on 
strengthening  the  intellect  and  awakening  the  nobleness 
of  the  heart.  We  can  all  be  happy  elsewhere.  Not  by 
magic,  not  by  earthquake,  not  by  tempest  or  fire  will 
the  thousand  happy  years  come,  but  as  education  and 
goodness  steal  over  man  all  his  life,  and  neither  his 
mind  nor  heart  can  feel  or  hear  the  footfall  of  those  dear 
angels,  thus  the  thousand  happy  years  will  come 
through  God  in  his  law,  and  come  as  silently  as  those 
violets  which  in  the  spring  the  earth  sends  up  from  her 
bosom. 

The  Angel's  Will  and  Judgment. 

The  tens  of  millions  of  ruined  youth  in  the  world  now 
show  that  God  does  not  often  come  to  a  life  that  has 
neglected  itself.  God  sent  His  angel  of  human  will  and 
human  judgment  before  Him,  and  He  loves  to  enter  the 
heart,  not  that  rejected  His  messengers,  but  that  re- 
ceived them. 

Calvin  Did  Help  the  Millennium. 

We  all  stand  amazed  that  our  era  passed  through  eigh- 
teen centuries  without  happening  upon  those  great  inven- 
tions and  discoveries  that  are  now  so  useful  and  so  grand; 
but  we  should  be  more  deeply  amazed  at  a  Christendom 
that  could  live  through  eighteen  hundred  years  without 
having  learned  that  Christianity  is  an  imitation  of  Jesus ! 
Calvin  cannot  hasten  the  millennium.  The  Romanists 
and  the  Protestants  cannot  compel  its  morning  to  push 
back  the  curtains  of  night.  Those  great  streaks  of  dawn 
will  come  when  the  human  soul  shall  take  up  the  sermon 
on  the  mount   and   transform  it   into  life.       Nature   is 


194 


ECHOES 


a  great  believer  in  life.  It  transforms  earth,  air,  water, 
and  light  into  blossoms  and  buds  and  millions  of  living 
forms  ;  so  it  comes  to  the  ideas  of  Jesus  and  flinging 
them  into  the  soul  commands  them  to  live.  It  will  not 
have  any  other  result  than  life. 

Young  People  of  the  Past  Injuf  ed. 
The  young  of  the  past  have  been  deeply  injured  by  a 
philosophy  which  informed  them  that  they  possessed  no 
power,  that  they  must  seek  some  day  a  divine  over- 
shadowing that  would  in  an  instant  change  their  natures 
and  set  them  out  upon  the  new  career  of  saints.  Under 
the  influence  of  this  blight  our  youth  have  assumed  them- 
selves to  be  powerless,  and  have  drifted  along  in  every 
folly  and  weakness,  expecting  the  Deity  to  come  and 
remake  them. 

Clergymen  Must  be  I<eadefs> 

The  clergymen  in  their  pulpits  must  be  also  leaders  in 
the  thought  and  work  of  the  State,  because  being  in  the 
service  of  the  King  of  Kings  they  must  make  every 
village  and  city  worthy  of  their  Monarch.  A  drunken 
man,  a  star\nng  child,  a  slave,  an  ignorant  mind,  is  a 
disgrace  to  the  beautiful  Empire  of  God. 

Achilles  Trembled  before  Jove. 

While  the  Indian  millions  and  Chaldean  millions  were 
drawing  their  morals  from  the  assumption  of  a  God,  the 
Greeks  and  Latins  were  preparing  to  take  up  elsewhere 
the  same  belief,  and  to  express  it  both  in  song  and  in 
philosophy.  Homer's  poem  opens  with  the  picture  of  a 
holy  prophet  walking  upon  the  sea-shore  praying  for  a 
justice  above  human  justice.  The  Achilles,  whom  no 
battle-field  could  alarm,  feared  the  wrath  of  the  king  of 
Olympus. 


DAVID    SWING.  195 

"  I/ord  Bacon  Uttered  more  Wisdom  than  He    I/ived." 

The  scene  now  before  us  is  that  of  a  much  larger  intel- 
lect and  a  slightly  improved  heart.  The  intellect  always 
was  in  advance  of  the  heart.  Men  know  the  right  long 
before  they  will  perform  it.  Mental  power  comes  long 
in' advance  of  the  moral  power.  In  our  city  of  a  million 
not  one  person  in  the  whole  million  believes  that  such  a 
metropolis  should  be  governed  by  men  of  an  infinite  unfit- 
ness for  the  task,  but  such  men  are  chosen  from  time  to 
time  because  the  universal  intelligence  is  many  years  in 
advance  of  the  public  morality.  We  all  know  what  is 
right,  but  our  moral  force  is  a  long  distance  behind  our 
judgment.  In  no  age  have  knowledge  and  action  trav- 
eled together.  L,ord  Bacon  uttered  more  wisdom  than  he 
could  live.  So  did  Shakespeare.  His  forehead  was  in  the 
clouds,  his  character  in  the  mire.  The  intellect  of  Goethe 
won  laurels  which  were  never  flung  down  in  the  path  of  his 
life.  All  these  men,  joined  by  thousands  as  great,  recall 
the  old  reproach  flung  at  Athens.  That  it  had  wheat  and 
moral  laws,  but  the  wheat  alone  it  could  use.  Athens 
could  eat  better  than  it  could  live.  The  youth  says: 
"Drinking  is  a  bad  habit,  but  give  me  another  glass." 
So  our  intelligence  says:  "All  cities  should  be  governed 
by  great  men,  but  for  the  present  bring  on  your  thieves." 
Thus  the  intellect  grows  great  more  rapidly  than  the 
heart  grows  powerful.  The  virtues  of  which  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare  sang  began  to  come  long  after  the  writers 
were  in  their  graves.     The  intellect  can  fly,  virtue  goes 

on  foot. 

"  How  I  l/ove  Thy  I^aw !  " 

The  admiration  of  the  psalmist,  who  cried  out,  "How 

I  Love  Thy  Law  ! ' '  should  undergo  great  enlargement 

in  a  century  that  has  found  how  vast  and  sublime  is  the' 

empire  of  this  beneficent  legislation. 


196  ECHOES 

B  rents  Come  Slowly. 
When  the  heart  is  so  susceptible  that  all  the  winds  of 
earth,  even  the  softest  whisper,  waken  music  amid  its 
strings,  then  the  greatest  da3's  of  this  life  are  passing. 
They  maj-  not  be  the  most  powerful  daj-s  in  actual 
events.  Events  come  slowly.  But  the)^  are  the  most 
powerful  days  in  all  those  qualities  that  produce  events. 
The  actual  harvest  is  always  far  away  from  the  sowing 
time.  Indeed,  the  harvest  comes  toward  the  fall  of  the 
year.  It  stands  close  by  the  autumn  leaf.  But  the  days 
that  made  the  harvest  began  far  back  in  the  March  and 
April  rains.  So  the  noble  events  of  life  come,  perhaps, 
in  full  or  late  manhood,  but  they  are  only  the  ripened 
fruit  of  a  tree  that  put  forth  its  leaves  and  blossoms  long 
before,  when  the  noble  atmosphere  of  youth  lay  around 
the  spirit.  The  young,  looking  at  all  the  illustrious  ones 
of  the  world,  and  marking  that  they  are  standing  in 
middle  life,  feel  that  they  can  hope  little  from  the  pre- 
sent, as  it  still  is  too  far  away  from  great  action.  Fatal 
mistake  !  That  middle  life  so  full  of  honors  is  only  the 
place  where  the  stream  of  youth  empties  all  its  long- 
borne  treasures.  Middle  life  is  the  place  where  the 
torrent  of  the  heart  tumbles  into  the  sea. 

Byron  and  Franklin. 

Here  a  grand  ideal  will  be  found  composed  of  two 
things— an  integrity  toward  man  and  God,  aud  then 
some  idol  of  this  life.  Follow  it,  and  you  will  find  re- 
ligion as  to  God,  and  a  glorious  life-pursuit  as  to  earth. 
Byron  held  to  only  one-half  the  vision.  But  he  made 
a  gigantic  world  out  of  that  half.  His  ideal  never 
moved  from  its  place.  The  Scotch  reviewers  could  not 
extinguish  or  eclipse  the  star.  Wherever  the  unhappy 
lord  went,  his  harp  was  in  his  hand,  and  all  the  world  of 


DAVID  SWING.  197 

beauty,  all  the  seas,  all  the  mountains,  all  the  joys  and 
griefs  of  mankind,  came  to  him  to  be  blessed  with  the 
immortality  of  song.  Before  Franklin  stood  the  dream 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge.  Before  all  who  have  ever 
I  reached  a  valuable  distinction  there  has  stood  a  future 
full  of  a  light  that  has  never  once  gone  out.  With  these 
two  lofty  heights  before  the  eye,  the  height  of  morals 
and  of  personal  development,  life  cannot  be  a  failure, 
end  where  it  may,  in  middle  years  or  in  old  age. 

A  Day  in  June. 

As  the  approaching  day  in  June  tips  first  the  moun- 
tain tops,  and  then  by  slow  advance,  reveals  the  leaf  up- 
on the  highest  branches  of  the  tree  by  your  window,  so 
the  light  of  immortality,  falling  down  from  the  sky, 
strikes  first  the  loftiest  hearts,  and  though  they  be  few 
in  number,  and  though  a  sinful  multitude  lie  in  ignor- 
ance and  vice  at  their  feet,  yet,  upon  these  lofty  ones 
you  may  see  falling  the  white  light  of  immortal  life. 
Let  us  call  it  Heaven,  and  place  Christ  in  the  midst  of 
the  approaching  scene. 

The  Stream  of  Public  Morals. 

The  stream  of  public  morals  has  thus  come  down  from 
far-off  influences.  It  has  overflowed  the  vales  of  human 
life.  This  sacred  water  has  flowed  to  the  altar  where  the 
bride  has  stood,  where  the  child  has  received  baptism, 
where  the  dirge  has  been  chanted  for  the  dead.  It  has 
given  spiritual  life  to  the  statesman,  images  to  the  poet, 
eloquence  to  the  orator,  joy  to  the  honorable,  fear  to  the 
wicked.  Wz^/i  the  fear  of  God  removed,  whence  shall 
come  any  more  this  great  overflow  of  a  stream  so  grand 
dignified  as  a  religion  ?  What  was  that  human  race  whose 
memory  was  all  the  immortality  the  good  man  might 


198  ECHOES 

desire?  Alas,  for  their  argument,  this  stream  of  life 
which  so  touched  that  school  had  been  made  beautiful  in 
tne  temple  of  religion.  Out  of  that  sanctuary  had  come 
Seneca  with  his  high  philosoph}-,  Aurelius  with  his 
virtue,  St.  Louis  with  his  prayers,  Beatrice  with  her_ 
beauty  of  soul,  Dante  with  his  poetry,  Angelo  with  his 
subjects,  Massillon  with  his  eloquence,  the  orators  with 
their  rights  of  man,  the  Church  with  its  charity.  If  the 
worship  of  man  be  indeed  so  noble  it  is  unfortu- 
nate for  atheism  that  religion  had  to  come  first  and  create 
such  a  charming  humanity.  And  yet  such  is  the 
dilemma.  Into  that  web  of  life  so  loved  by  the  followers 
of  Comte,  religion.  Pagan  and  Christian,  has  interwoven 
its  many  beautiful  threads.  The  human  race,  so  beauti- 
ful, had  made  its  charming  toilet  in  the  temple  of  the 
gods. 

How  Good  Men  May  Disgrace  their  Souls. 

The  Disciples,  indignant  that  a  certain  Samaritan 
village  would  not  receive  their  Master,  asked  permission 
and  power  to  rain  down  fire  upon  the  unbelieving  nation. 
Christ  refused  their  request,  and  informed  them  that  they 
were  disgracing  their  own  souls  by  uttering  or  cherish- 
ing such  a  wish.  They  were  ignorant  of  the  unworthi- 
ness  of  the  nature  that  could  exult  in  such  a  rain-storm 
of  fire.  In  the  mind  of  Christ  there  lay  a  different  ideal 
of  man's  duty  and  pleasure. 

Civilization  the  Mitigation  of  a  Hard  I/ot. 

Having  come  to  the  end  of  a  whole  year  of  chaotic 
public  and  private  affairs  the  heart  must  find  its  consola- 
tion in  the  general  thought  that  in  working  his  way  for- 
ward   from  barbarism  man   cannot   escape   difiiculties. 


DAVID   SWING.  199 

Barbarism  is  itself  a  supreme  hardship;  and  very  slowly 
does  this  severity  pass  away.  Civilization  may  be  called 
the  gradual  mitigation  of  a  hard  lot.  When  we  perceive 
the  imperfections  of  our  country,  the  great  unhappiness 
of  some  of  its  millions,  our  hearts  would  break  were  it 
not  for  the  reflection  that  civilization  has  always  been  a 
slow  advance  toward  betterments.  We  must  be  thankful 
for  what  good  we  have  reached  and  must  labor  diligently 
for  more  happiness.  We  must  resist  to  the  uttermost 
all  crime,  all  violation  of  law,  but  we  must  be  tender  and 
just  to  all  those  who  believe  they  can  make  our  race  less 
miserable.  If  in  this  sincere  faith  and  effort  persons 
should  choose  to  walk  a  few  hundreds  or  thousands  of 
miles  they  have  a  right  to  march,  carrying  with  them 
their  favorite  ideas.  It  is  not  essential  that  their  ideas 
shall  be  good;  it  is  essential  only  that  the  holders  of  them 
advance  unarmed  and  in  the  name  of  perfect  personal 
honor. 

Jesus  Christ  Touching  the  Inmost  Spirit. 

So  there  may  be  spirits  living  and  dying  unaffected  by 
the  Son  of  Man,  but  when  we  seek  for  an  influence  that 
is  molding  deeply  the  heart,  we  find  it  here  in  Nazareth. 
Whether  Mr.  Lincoln  repeats  his  poem, 

Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud? 

whether  Macaulay,  dying,  wishes  to  take  the  sacrament, 
whether  Payson  prays,  or  Bunyan  dreams,  whether  a 
child  commits  itself  to  God  at  night,  or  a  Cranmer  sees 
Heaven  through  the  light  of  the  fagot,  it  is  all  one  scene 
— that  of  Jesus  Christ  affecting  deeply  the  inmost  spirit 
of  man. 


200  ECHOES 

New  Truths  Rise  Slowly. 

The  educated,  broad,  deep  thinking  young  men  of  the 
orthodox  ministery  must  not  expect  the  great  massive 
church  to  move  around  like  a  feather  in  a  breeze.  The 
new  truths  must  slowly  rise,  and  the  old  doctrines  must 
slowly  fall.  The  broad  men  ought  to  be  not  only  satis- 
fied, but  delighted  with  the  mental  and  moral  progress  of 
the  church  in  the  last  twenty-five  years.  Into  that  old 
sanctuary  which  once  hated,  scolded,  hanged,  burned, 
exiled,  tortured,  and  damned,  a  love  of  man  has  come 
step  by  step.  The  church  has  almost  discarded  Christ 
as  an  avenger,  to  love  him  as  a  Savior.  No  twenty- 
five  years,  not  excepting  that  group  of  days  around  Jesus 
himself  in  Judea,  have  brought  to  our  world  such  an  ad- 
dition to  human  friendship  and  human  rights.  We  may, 
indeed,  all  be  sorry  to  see  the  orthodox  bodies  condemn- 
ing here  and  there  an  individual,  but  these  condemna- 
tions are  mild  in  their  quality  and  are  thus  fading  away, 
and  with  the  fading  quality  the  quantity  will  soon  also 
decline. 

An  Absolute  I<ife  Impossible. 

No  soul  can  live  an  absolute  life.  Each  person  in  this 
assembly  is  three  or  four  thousand  years  old.  Not  only 
were  the  features  of  the  modern  face  wrought  out  in 
France,  Germany  and  England,  but  there  also  the  soul 
lay  and  took  its  shape  of  sentiment.  Our  souls  are 
vases  into  which  the  past  poured  not  its  ashes,  but  its 
faith.  Hence,  what  atheists  there  are  in  the  present  are 
not  standing  up  in  a  moral  or  a  mental  greatness  all 
their  own,  but  in  a  consciousness  and  conscience  gradu- 
ally fashioned  in  days  where  the  mothers  bowed  in 
prayer,  and  where  all  the  music  and  elo(juence  of  Chris- 


DAVID   SWING.  20I 

tianity  molded  the  sentiments.  The  customs  and  maxims 
of  life  surrounding  the  atheist  of  to-day  are  not  customs 
and  maxims  of  his  own,  but  of  the  theism  in  minds  and 
hearts  that  have  come  down  through  the  atmosphere  of 
a  piety  and  have  been  colored  in  its  religious  hues.  The 
atheists  of  to-day  are,  therefore,  not  the  results  of  the 
worship  of  humanit}',  but  they  are  still  the  results  of  a 
history  that  has  every  where  been  full  of  the  Supreme 
Being.  A  man  may  reject  the  creed  of  yesterday,  but 
he  cannot  reject  its  influence  any  more  than  he  can  com- 
mand his  forehead  to  become  low  or  his  intellect  to  go 
back  to  the  stolidity  of  the  times  of  King  Alfred. 

Fields  Drenched  in  Blood. 

Taking  the  world  all  over  death  by  violence  has  been 
the  most  popular  amusement  of  all  the  past  epoch.  The 
Indian  was  not  the  only  one  admired  for  the  scalps  he 
had  dangling  at  his  belt.  A  similar  ornament  bedecked 
the  temples  of  Caesar  and  Bonaparte.  It  was  at  the  edge 
of  our  century  the  death  of  a  neighbor  began  to  lose  its 
charm;  but  all  these  fields  which  surround  our  city  have 
again  and  again  been  drenched  in  blood.  Within  our 
historic  period  there  were  thirty-seven  Indian  tribes  on 
this  continent.  That  is,  there  were  always  thirty-six 
chances  of  war  each  year  for  each  tribe.  The  living 
tribes  must  have  been  few  compared  with  those  that  were 
blotted  out  by  battle  and  massacre.  Then  came  the  white 
race.  Like  the  red  man  it  came  with  blood  on  its  hands. 
It  hastened  on  the  New  England  shore  to  make  trouble. 
The  harsh  winter  gave  no  little  pain ;  but  it  did  not  satisfy 
the  great  Christian  warriors  who  had  come  over  in  three 
ships  from  the  European  battlefields.  So  they  began  to 
kill  some  red  men  and  to  steal  their  hidden  corn.     In  due 


202  ECHOES 

time  our  ancestors  had  all  the  trouble  they  could  carry  in 
their  hearts.  It  was  always  thus  with  the  white  man. 
While  the  red  man  was  dying  out  in  the  West  the  black 
man  was  coming  in  the  South,  and  not  on  his  account 
did  trouble  stay  away.  As  sparks  shoot  upward  from  the 
fire,  so  troubles  arose  when  white  met  black.  It  was 
sadder  than  when  white  met  red. 

The  Disciples  Amazed. 

The  "  liberalism  "  has  been  in  the  world  so  long  that 
there  must  be  something  real  and  tangible  about  it.  In 
a  most  unexpected  moment  it  came  from  the  lips  of 
Christ  when  some  of  his  impetuous  disciples  wished  him 
to  check  some  men  who  seemed  to  be  acting  as  Christians 
without  having  received  a  direct  commission.  To  the 
amazement  of  the  disciples,  we  doubt  not,  Christ  com- 
manded that  they  be  let  alone,  for  they  were  doing  some- 
thing for  the  kingdom.  They  had  a  desire  to  serve  the 
Master,  and  that  desire  was  too  valuable  to  be  checked 
by  any  rebuke. 

Climbing  Mon  Blanc- 
While  the  mind  thus  meditates  over  the  world  as  being 
cumulative  in  its  genius,  it  must  apply  to  itself  the 
philosophy  it  finds  for  church  and  state.  Our  active  and 
red-cheeked  youth  do  lot  possess  all  the  good  of  this 
planet.  They  indeed  step  with  light  foot  and  light  heart, 
but  their  soul  lacks  volume.  Each  new  year,  if  not 
was:ed,  will  more  and  more  change  the  few  rain-drops 
into  a  great,  roaring  shower.  The  entire  scene  widens 
day  by  day.  Life  is  much  like  going  up  the  slope  of 
Mon  Blanc.  As  the  traveler  ascends  leisurely,  new  beau- 
ties rise  up;  one  beyond  the  other,  until  his  heart  at  last 


DAVID   SWING.  203 

holds  all  the  villages  and  homes,  all  the  streams  and 
forests,  all  the  gardens,  all  the  colors,  and  all  the  happy 
peasantry  that  are  grouped  in  a  mass  of  beauty  in  the 
vale  of  Chamouni. 

"  I/iberalism  as  Old  as  Thought." 

No  doubt  "  liberalism  "  is  as  old  as  human  thought. 
From  what  we  see  in  the  history  of  Athens  and  Rome 
there  must  always  have  been  men  in  each  period  of  the 
world  who  were  busy  protesting  against  certain  old 
forms  of  custom  and  idea.  Indeed,  this  is  not  a  matter 
of  conjecture.  From  old  India,  full  of  despotism,  there 
arose  poets  who  sung  of  liberty.  In  Greece,  full  of  the 
polytheistic  idea,  there  arose  minds  that  declared  the 
Divine  Unity,  and  for  a  more  spiritual  worship. 

Tears. 

The  truths  and  feelings  of  life  come  one  by  one. 
Tears  come  easily  in  early  life,  but  they  do  not  mean  as 
much  as  they  mean  at  thirty  or  fifty.  And  love  and 
admiration  come  easily  when  life  is  not  far  from  the 
cradle,  but  they  do  not  sweep  the  soul  as  they  do  later  in 
the  human  pilgrimage.  To  the  child  the  earth  and  sky 
are  attractive,  but  they  are  not  so  clothed  with  mystery 
as  they  are  long  afterward.  Children  love  music,  but  it 
is  the  older  heart  that  weeps  in  answer  to  all  touching 
strains.  In  youth  the  heart  hates  easily  and  without 
cause  ;  as  years  pass  hate  is  crowded  out  of  the  soul  by 
the  growiag  truth  and  beauty  of  an  infinite  humanity. 

Christ  in  our  Highest  Amotions. 

I  claim  that  Jesus  Christ  has  entered  deeply  into  all 
the  lines  of  emotion  and  intellect  that  now  so  adorn  our 
century.  You  Christians  meet  to-day  to  commune  with 
Him!     It  is  well.     But  He  communed  with  your  country 


204  ECHOES 

and  your  literature  and  your  arts  long  before  you  came 
upon  the  scene  of  action.  He  began  to  shine  into  the 
human  heart  long  ago  and  re-shape  it.  He  fashioned  the 
holy  hymns  which  our  fathers  sang.  He  stood  by  when 
the  Catholics  created  the  Gregorian  chant,  and  where  the 
Covenanters  sang  their  psalms  in  the  wilderness.  He  in- 
vaded the  realm  of  poetic  thought,  and  turned  divine 
genius  away  from  the  adulation  of  bloody  generals  to  the 
study  of  nature  and  its  Creator,  the  soul  and 'its  destiny. 
He  has  communed  with  all  the  centuries  since  His  Ad- 
vent, and  has  penetrated  them  with  a  purer,  loftier  spirit. 
Mother  and  child  have  knelt  in  prayer  by  His  example 
and  request;  the  mightiest  intellects  have  shaped  their 
philosophy  in  the  light  of  Christ,  and  the  old  and  the 
dying  have  tried  to  go  away  from  earth  with  some  of  this 
Saviour's  words  upon  their  trembling,  blanching  lips. 

An   Editor  May  be  a  Statesman. 

If  a  statesman  be  a  personage  fully  wedded  to  the 
welfare  of  the  people  he  can  be  aided  not  a  little  by  a 
belief  in  the  infinite  Potentate — the  King  of  Kings,  be- 
cause that  idea  is  so  royal  that  it  can  lift  up  the  trusting 
mind  and  make  God's  children  upon  earth  seem  dear  and 
great.  The  sublime  King  exalts  the  subjects.  Inasmuch 
as  in  our  century  the  printed  thought  has  become  an 
equal  of  spoken  thought  the  true  statesman  may  talk  to 
his  nation  through  printed  words.  An  editor  may  be  a 
statesman,  because  his  press  may  become  a  forum  and  his 
audience-room  may  become  larger  than  the  crumbling 
Colosseum;  but  he  must  consecrate  his  life  to  great  truths 
and  deem  all  else  useless.  Where  the  power  of  the  State 
is  held  in  the  voting  people  the  statesman  can  be  the  men 
in  the  shop  and  on  the  farm. 


DAVID   SWING.  205 

The  Nation  Has  no  Soul! 
The  Nation  has  no  body,  no  soul;  it  cannot  walk  or 
run;  it  has  nothing  but  its  laws  and  the  power  to  enforce 
them.  It  is  like  a  great  steamship  which  cannot  do  any- 
thing except  cross  an  ocean.  But  noble  is  the  ship  that 
can  thus  master  the  sea.  We  expect  as  much  of  our 
Nation:  that  it  will  always  perform  its  solitary  but 
gigantic  task.  It  .stands  for  what  millions  of  its  citizens 
fought  for,  thought,  and  enacted  in  their  best  hours  of 
goodness  and  reflection. 

The  Attic  Philosopher. 

In  a  little  volume,  ' '  The  Attic  Philosopher, ' '  the  poor 
little  girl  Paulette  has  a  wall  flower  blossoming  in  a  green 
paper  box.  Her  garden  was  a  little  piece  of  a  roof  in 
Paris.  There  her  plants  had  to  grow  in  boxes  made  with 
her  own  hand.  There  the  sun  could  peep  in  at  times, 
and  there  the  rain  had  to  mix  itself  with  soot  and  dust 
and  half  kill  the  plants  it  ought  to  nourish.  What  a 
miracle  of  grace  and  beauty  could  the  taste  and  love  of 
Paulette  have  been  transferred  from  that  roof  to  some 
valley  of  the  Seine  or  the  Loire!  The  child's  heart  would 
thus  have  been  led  out  of  its  distress  into  a  broad  place 
where  there  is  no  straitness. 

Holding  Fast  to  Truth. 

If  a  young  Presbyterian,  or  a  young  politician,  or 
young  electrician,  or  a  young  Methodist,  or  a  young 
musician  has  some  new  truth  he  must  extract  his  first  hap- 
piness from  holding  fast  to  it  himself.  His  second  happi- 
ness must  come  from  seeing  others  hold  on  to  it.  It  was 
a  great  joy  to  Archimedes  when  he  alone  knew  a  certain 
truth.      He  sprang  out  of  his  bath  with  joy  saying:  "I 


206  ECHOES 

have  found  it."  Thus  each  heart  should  at  first  be  happy 
in  its  own  truth,  and  then  wait  for  the  little  plant  to 
grow.  There  should  be  no  surrender  to  the  outside 
multitude.  The  opposing  multitude  will  grow  smaller 
as  the  days  pass.  The  multitude  that  holds  an  error  will 
all  at  last  melt  away  like  the  snow. 

I^aw  Everywhere. 

Laws  appear  everywhere.  We  find  them  in  the  domain 
of  beauty.  They  forbid  the  architect  to  put  a  small  col- 
umn under  a  mighty  dome,  and  will  not  permit  him  to 
sacrifice  power  to  beauty.  They  command  the  painter  to 
care  for  nature  and  not  to  make  wheat  ripen  in  the  snow 
and  not  to  make  the  robbins  sing  in  the  leafless  trees  of 
Christmas.  They  issue  orders  to  literature  and  tell  it  to 
exclude  debasing  ideas  and  to  admit  the  truths  of  most 
value  and  of  greatest  application.  They  issue  orders 
to  religion  and  tell  it  to  create  in  humanity  the 
most  possible  of  virtue  and  hope.  Appearing  at  all  other 
points  of  thought  and  action  laws  spring  up  in  the  State 
to  help  the  public  hold  what  justice  and  progress  it  may 
have  found.  These  laws  our  marching  citizens  must 
respect.  All  damage  done  property,  all  disregard  of 
American  rights,  the  rights  of  individuals  or  of  corpora- 
tions must  be  instantly  checked,  because  the  law  of  the 
land  is  the  progress  we  have  made  in  the  ages  up  to  this 
date.  With  that  taken  away  we  fall  back  into  the  abyss 
of  barbarism.  Our  Nation,  may  or  may  not  have  climbed 
very  high  from  its  barbaric  starting  point,  but  it  must 
hold  what  it  has  gained.  Our  laws  of  property  have  been 
passed  by  the  millions  acting  in  their  best  hours;  they 
must  not  be  set  at  naught  by  bands  of  itinerants  acting 
in  their  bad  hours. 


DAVID    SWING.  207 

Religion  Has  Become  Beautiful. 

You  will  find  that  not  only  is  Christ  pouring  into 
the  soul  the  great  democratic  idea  that  is  blooming  now 
into  new  and  beautiful  rights  of  man,  but  that  Christ 
has  waked  in  the  bosom  a  group  of  other  feelings  scarcely 
visible  when  the  world  was  young.  Religion  has  passed 
from  the  terrible  to  the  joyous,  from  the  horrid  to  the 
beautiful.  The  heathen  tortures  himself  with  knives ; 
the  Christian  of  our  day  sings  words  and  music,  the 
sweetest  that  the  two  arts  can  produce.  The  Chinese  and 
all  the  pagans  kill  at  times  innocent  little  ones  as  an  act  of 
worship;  the  Christian  mother  clasps  her  infant  to  her 
bosom  and  whispers  prayers  over  it,  mingling  prayers 
and  tears.  The  heathen  philosopher  doubted  and  steeled 
his  heart  to  his  fate;  the  Christian  philosopher  beholds  the 
city  that  hath  foundations,  and  walks  calmly  down  life's 
decline. 

The  Broad  Churchman. 

The  Unitarian  who  cannot  at  time^  worship  with  the 
orthodox  because  of  the  errors  in  the  book  of  the  latter, 
has  degraded  his  liberalism  into  a  narrowness,  for  its 
mission  being  to  find  and  love  the  general  and  lasting  in 
thought,  it  is  compelled  to  mark  and  love  the  general 
and  lasting  in  the  human  soul.  The  truly  broad  church- 
man can  worship  in  all  temples,  for  as  musical  tones  can 
be  heard  further  than  unpleasing  sounds,  so  the  divine 
parts  of  the  service  only  will  reach  his  spirit,  his  soul 
being  too  far  upward  to  be  reached  by  the  notes  that  are 
discordant. 

Party  Names  must  Die. 

As  die  these  two  words,  Unitarianism  and  Universal- 
ism,  so  other  church  names  are   falling  into  decay.     No 


2o8  ECHOES 

sectarian  name  holds  to-day  the  meaning  and  fame  it 
held  a  hundred  years  ago.  Even  the  word  Jew  is  rapidly 
parting  with  its  old  significance.  It  would  be  unreason- 
able to  expect  a  term  like  Jew  or  Universalist  to  perish 
in  a  day.  Customs  and  prejudices  do  not  perish  by  an 
explosion  ;  they  disappear  like  the  Arctic  snows.  Those 
snows  once  reached  South  to  the  Ohio,  but  the  sun  has 
smitten  the  margin  until  it  has  uncovered  the  fields  of 
Indiana  and  Illinois  and  Canada.  Thus  old  names  of 
churches  will  die,  not  by  violence,  but  by  the  melting 
touch  of  a  new  era.  In  England  the  name  of  Church- 
man or  Episcopalian  was  once  so  tall  and  pompous  that 
all  other  alleged  Christians  were  little  better  than  in- 
fidels. Their  services  were  "meetings"  and  their  build- 
ings not  "churches,"  but  "meeting-houses."  This 
treatment  given  by  the  establishment  inflamed  the  zeal  of 
the  Wesleyans,  and  Sydney  Smith  sa^^s  the  Wesleyans 
had  on  some  lake  or  stream  a  steamboat  built  for  carrj^- 
ing  nothing  but  Methodists.  The  same  culture  that 
keeps  the  caste  of  ftidia  out  of  the  Western  civilization  is 
extracting  all  the  old  significance  from  the  names  of  the 
sects,  and  is  offering  to  them  instead  the  simple  word 
Christian. 

The  Potter's  Clay. 

When  the  potter's  clay  first  falls  upon  the  board  it  is 
only  a  lump ;  an  hour  afterward  it  is  seen  standing  forth 
an  elegant  vase,  with  lines  the  most  graceful  conceivable 
in  human  taste.  So  man  set  forth  in  life  only  a  lump  of 
mind ;  the  subsequent  years  point  out  to  us  a  noble 
Greek  or  German  or  Englishman.  To  bring  about  such 
results,  the  wheel  has  been  turned  a  long  while,  and  the 
molding  hand  has  for  centuries  pressed  heavily  and 
lightly  by  times.     War  and  peace,  climate,  the  presence  of 


DAVID    SWING.     .  209 

great  individuals,  the  longings  of  the  soul,  self-interest, 
vanity,  ambition,  the  love  of  money,  the  love  of  man, 
and  the  love  of  God  have  all  entered  into  the  great 
pottery,  and  have  given  the  shape  and  then  changed  the 
shape  of  all  the  clay  children  that  have  come  and  gone 
on  the  world-stage. 

A  I/aw  in  the  Spirit. 

Paul  saj's  there  is  a  law  in  the  spirit  that  reveals  the 
Infinite  One,  and  that  on  this  account  all  souls  are  re- 
sponsible for  the  conduct  of  life.  Now  this  inner  senti- 
ment, in  its  power,  which  has  always  surpassed  its  infor- 
mation, has  peopled  the  air  with  divinities,  crude,  feeble, 
great,  or  monstrous,  according  to  the  surroundings  of 
the  brain.  A  faculty  or  an  instinct  does  not  include  the 
right  use  of  the  faculty  or  instinct.  The  sentiment  of 
music  in  the  soul  did  not  involve  the  immediate  discovery 
of  the  piano  or  the  arrangement  at  once  of  a  symphony, 
but  involved  only  a  long  struggle  and  a  long  period  of 
littleness.  The  religious  feeling  in  the  soul  thus  strug- 
gled along,  and  in  the  first  years  of  its  strivings  saw  gods 
in  every  storm,  and  in  every  ray  of  sunshine,  an  1  in  all 
the  shadows  of  the  night.  Paul  says  God  so  made  the 
rational  world  that  they  should  "  seek  the  Lord  if  haply 
they  may  feel  after  him  and  find  him."  All  the  mytho- 
logical and  theological  phenomena  of  the  past  are  mani- 
festations of  this  feeling  after  the  true  God. 

The  Imperishable  Ideas  of  Christ. 

But    ':zt  us   pronounce  the  name  of  the  one  mighty  in 
tellect   which,    more  than    all    others,    has   sown  in  the 
Church  the   seeds  of  this  harvest,  of  poisonous  plants  as 
some   sa}',  but  of  golden  grain  indeed  destined  to  be  the 
food  of  the  future  !     Let  us  pronounce  the  name  and  then 


2IO  ECHOES 

ask  those  whose  bosoms  are  full  of  alarm  to  call  him 
"infidel,"  or  "destroj^er  i  "  The  name  !  The  name! 
Ah  !  here  it  is — Jesus  Christ  of  Bethlehem  !  There  is 
the  fountain  whence  roll  the  transparent  waters  of  this 
broad  philosophy.  Far  beyond  all  beings  who  have 
ever  lived  Christ  was  the  broadest.  His  ideas  are  all 
imperishable.  He  cast  out  the  temporary  that  had  come 
down  from  Moses;  He  made  the  old  iron-bound  Sabbath 
die  in  the  field  where  the  sweet  wheat  was  ripening;  He 
saw  the  human  soul  in  Lazarus,  in  Magdalen,  in  little 
children;  He  rebuked  the  disciples  when  they  desired  to 
draw  the  sword  of  their  sect;  He  uttered  few  of  the  ideas 
that  enter  into  the  modern  differences  between  denomina- 
tions; He  preached  a  discourse,  every  word  of  which  falls 
not  upon  Judea,  but  upon  the  whole  earth;  a  sermon 
under  which  all  men  have  written  the  word  *  'forever. ' ' 

How  Theologfians  Travel. 

The  intellect  of  the  church  always  travels  in  the 
oxen's  cart.  We  need  not  find  fault  with  that  mode  of 
travel.  What  better  intellect  you  and  I  possess  came  to 
us  in  that  kind  of  a  vehicle.  The  men  of  India  who 
came  hither  to  tell  us  that  our  souls  will  mitgrate  at  last 
into  some  other  animal  came  by  steam  over  sea  and  con- 
tinent. They  ordered  dinner  by  telegraph.  They  called 
a  carriage  by  the  telephone  ;  but  their  creeds  and  attach- 
ments did  not  make  any  such  quick  movements.  The 
inventions  are  all  for  the  body  and  for  physical  property 
and  not  for  the  soul.  Even  the  Congress  at  Washington 
assembled  by  steam  ;  but  when  the  science  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  had  gotten  them  together  it  could  do  no 
more  for  them.  When  a  Congressman  rides  in  a  car  a 
mile  a  minute  he  will  at  the  end  of  his  journey  have  no 


DAVID   SWING.  2X1 

more  intellect  than  he  had  when  he  started.     The  theo- 
logians of  Princeton  travel  in  steam  cars. 

I/Ove  for  Half- Visions. 

We  must  love  the  grand  half-visions  of  this  world. 
Like  Moses,  being  unable  to  see  the  face  of  the  Almighty, 
we  must  be  content  with  the  rustle  of  his  flowing  gar- 
ments. Unable  fully  to  measure  the  Christ,  let  us 
say,  'Here  is  the  only  incarnation  within  the  realm  of 
evidence,  and  here  the  quality  of  the  being  is  such  that 
reason  may  forgive  us  and  faith  commend  us  if  we  say, 
Truly  this  was  the  Son  of  God." 

Waiting  for  a  Fact! 
One  of  the  Roman  writters  said,  '  'Even  our  children 
no  longer  believe  in  our  divinities. ' '  One  of  the  prayers 
of  Pliny  was  "for  a  new  consolation,  great  and  strong, 
of  which  he  had  not  yet  heard  or  read."  A  Latin  sage 
said,  "I  need  a  God  who  can  speak  to  me  and  can  lead 
me. ' '  Dr.  Arnold  finds  somewhere  in  the  writings  of 
Aurelius  "that  he  was  sad  and  agitated,  stretching  out 
his  arms  for  something  'beyond."  Cicero  had  declared 
that  "the  Academy  could  prove  nothing."  The  Roman 
Empire  had  all  forms  of  greatness  except  religious  faith. 
Weary  of  legend,  cultured  beyond  the  credulity  that 
believes  without  evidence,  the  Roman  Empire  was  ready 
for  an  advent  of  fact.  In  the  man  of  Nazareth  the  dim 
gates  of  mythology  were  closed  and  the  gates  of  evidence 
were  opened.  Here  was  One  that  could  speak  to  the 
multitude,  and  the  hem  of  whose  garment  might  be 
touched.  Here  was  One  who  could  say  "blessed"  to 
the  unblessed  crowd,  and  whose  feet  a  Magdalene  might 
bathe  with  tears.  Here  was  One  who  could  feed  a  mul- 
titude in  the  wilderness,   who   could  comfort  the  dying 


212  ECHOES 

and  the  living,  and   could  allow   a   mortal  like  John  to 
rest  against  His  bosom. 

"  The  Sound  of  Many  Waters." 

The  readers  of  the  Bible  find  in  places  far  apart  that 
beautiful  phrase,  "The  voice  of  many  waters."  The 
early  men  and  women  of  our  race  loved  nature,  not  as 
ardently  as  we  all  love  it,  but  yet  deeply  enough  to 
make  it  a  source  of  happiness.  Happiness  is  an  indefinite 
term.  It  is  like  gold  in  this,  that  if  one  has  not  a  million 
or  two  of  it's  dollars,  then  a  half  million  or  a  tenth  of  a 
million  will  be  a  great  comfort  to  the  heart.  Thus  the 
ancients  were  happy,  often  in  the  presence  of  nature. 
We  do  not  know  exactly  how  much  delight  they  found 
in  the  scenes  and  sounds  of  the  external  world,  but  the 
most  cultivated  possessed  quite  a  fortune  of  this  kind. 
Each  red  sunset,  each  bright  day,  each  morning  birdsong, 
each  opening  spring  brought  pleasure,  but  perhaps  not  as 
much  joy  as  now  comes  to  humanity  from  the  same 
external  objects.  The  growth  of  the  human  mind  is  the 
growth  of  all  beauty,  for  the  universe,  having  come  from 
an  infinite  God,  will  unfold  always  as  man  shall  unfold, 
and  will  never  fail  to  give  new  joy  to  each  new  age.  It 
will  be  as  infinite  as  the  mind  itself. 

The  Blending:  Christ. 

The  real  truth  is,  Christ  has  blended  himself  with  all 
the  annals  of  Christian  lands,  and  has  given  new  color  to 
all  the  daj'S  of  the  great  era  that  wears  His  name.  As 
the  setting  sun  shining  through  a  watery  air  makes  all 
things — fence,  hut,  log,  forest,  and  field — to  be  gold  like 
himself,  so  Christ  blends  with  the  rich  and  the  humble 
details  of  society. 


DAVID   SWING.  213 

I/onely  Hours- 

The  Psalmist  had  said,  "Clouds  and  darkness  are 
round  about  Him."  What  the  modern  spirit  experiences 
as  an  occasional  flow  of  melancholy  was  the  constant 
feeling  of  all  the  noble  ones  of  antiquity.  Many  of  the 
most  excellent  sought  death,  because  it  was  supposed  to 
be  an  end  of  sorrow;  a  sweet,  dreamless  sleep.  What  our 
poets  dream  of  in  lonely  hours,  most  of  the  old  sages 
carried  about  all  the  while  in  their  hearts: 

Would  this  weary  life  was  spent, 
Would  this  fruitless  search  were  o'er, 
And  rather  than  such  visions,  blessed 
The  gloomiest  depths  of  nothingness. 

Such  a  poem  shadows  forth  the  occasional  sadness  of 
the  present,  but  the  almost  universal  darkness  of  classic 
Rome. 

Noah's  Dove  witli  a  I^eaf. 

It  is  only  a  garden  or  a  field,  and  the  earth  is  inhab- 
ited only  by  our  mother  and  the  home  group  ;  but  to  the 
educated  mind  in  later  life  a  wonderful  world  has  come 
and  the  mind  fluctuates  between  sadness  and  inspiration. 
The  great  exposition  of  a  year  ago  was  composed  of 
little  pieces  of  the  world.  It  was  only  Noah's  dove  with 
a  leaf.  Here  was  a  bit  of  architecture,  here  a  few  pieces 
of  painting,  here  a  few  statues,  here  some  jewels,  here 
some  strains  of  music,  here  some  channels  of  water,  here 
some  strolling  hearts,  but  from  these  pass  to  the  vast 
globe,  from  our  lagoons  pass  to  the  Rhine  or  the  Nile, 
from  our  visitors  pass  to  the  human  race  and  the  scene 
swells  to  vastness.  If  that  hint  of  our  world  was  so 
attractive  what  must  the  world  itself  be  ?  To  meet  the 
demand  of  such  a  world  the  heart  and  mind  must  be 


214 


ECHOES 


cumulative.  The  soul  must  never  be  impatient  to  run 
fast,  but  it  must  never  stop.  In  politics,  in  religion,  in 
social  reform,  it  must  work  and  hope.  It  must  feel  that 
all  truths  will  gather  volume.  What  are  these  truths 
here  for  ?  Is  it  that  they  may  perish  ?  Are  the  sciences 
here  that  they  may  die  ?  Is  astronomy  here  to  fail  ?  Is 
the  geometrs'  to  become  false  ?  Is  stealing  ever  to  be- 
come a  virtue?  Is  honesty  to  become  a  vice?  Each 
truth  is  the  presence  of  God.  His  omnipotence  and 
omnipresence  are  in  it.  Each  moral  truth  will  therefore 
grow  in  our  advancing  world.  When  we  listen  now  to 
the  sounds  around  us  there  are  touches  of  discord,  but 
we  must  all  work  and  be  patient  and  think  of  that  future 
of  both  earth  and  heaven  when  all  sounds  will  combine 
in  a  rich  music,  and  where  the  voice  of  the  world  will  be 
like  the  deep  voice  of  many  waters. 

Job,  and  Dante,  and  Milton. 
The  person  who  wrote  the  book  of  Job  was  one  of  those 
poetic  minds  that  are  liable  to  appear  in  Italy  as  a  Dante 
or  England  as  a  Milton.  Before  the  eye  of  this  ancient 
the  ills  of  the  spirit  are  pictured  as  the  ills  of  the  external 
scene.  A.s  Dante's  personal  troubles  took  the  form  of  a 
wandering  in  a  strange  woods  where  a  leopard  and  lion 
and  a  wolf  were  passing  to  and  fro  before  him  so  this  old 
writer  compelled  the  external  landscape  to  express  the 
troubles  of  the  sufferer' s  private  life.  His  hero  is  seen  as 
in  some  dark  or  narrow  ravine  or  in  the  midst  of  rocks, 
flints,  and  thorns,  in  some  dreary,  horrible  place,  and  yet 
in  a  world  where  Mercy  would  have  been  glad  to  lead 
him  out  of  the  distress  to  a  broad,  open  country  where 
there  was  no  straitness.  The  old  poet  and  the  later  one 
may  have  had  in  mind  the  straits  into  which  man  gener- 
ally falls  in  his  bad  dreams.       In  such   dreams   we   are 


DAVID   SWING.  215 

always  in  the  narrows.  If  there  are  not  walls  or  ditches 
or  fences  or  floods  then  there  are  weights  to  the  feet  or 
other  kind  of  impediment.  As  contrasted  with  all  such 
distress  how  blessed  is  the  broad  open  country  !  The 
poets,  early  and  late,  assure  man  that  he  was  made  for  a 
wide  career  and  would  grow  happy  as  rapidly  as  the 
scene  should  widen  liefore  him.  Coming  from  an  infinite 
mind,  man  contains  wnthin  himself  a  preference  for  the 
ocean  as  compared  with  a  pond,  and  for  a  boundless 
prairie  as  compared  with  a  square  yard  of  dirty  grass  in 
the  heart  of  a  great  city. 

Unitarians  Unhappy  Over  their  Name. 

And  now  at  last  a  time  has  appeared  when  the  name 
of  Calvinism  or  Wesleyanism  has  become  more  of  a 
burden  than  a  joy.  Once  each  of  these  church  names 
was  a  source  of  happiness  to  the  church  that  bore  it,  but 
they  have  at  last  become  empty  of  such  pleasure.  Hun- 
dreds of  church  names  are  getting  ready  to  fade  away  in 
the  general  term  of  Christian.  The  special  term  of- 
Methodist  or  Presbyterian  or  Episcopalian  has  served  its 
first  purpose,  and  will  always  be  hereafter  a  picture  of 
the  past  rather  than  an  active,  living  creature.  The 
Unitarians  are  particularly  unhappy  over  their  name,  for 
even  if  Christ  were  something  less  than  a  God  it  could 
not  well  harm  a  mind  if  it  believed  that  he  were  a  deity 
in  fact.  A  church  might  have  been  formed  so  as  to  make 
it  optional  with  a  Christian  to  think  of  Jesus  as  a  human 
being.  To  declare  Jesus  to  be  human  was  irrelevant.  If 
our  statesmen  should  declare  in  favor  of  a  silver  dollar 
they  ought  still  to  permit  the  country  to  make  coin  out 
of  gold.  So  if  many  thought  Christ  to  be  only  human 
there  should  have  been  an  ample  welcome  offered  to  any 
who  might   think   him  divine.     But   the  Unitarians  so 


2i6  ECHOES 

idolized  silver  that  they  insulted  the  old  gold.  They 
should  have  stated  clearly  that  their  purpose  was  to  make 
silver  only  a  part  of  the  ornament  of  the  sanctuary. 
What  that  body  of  Christians  now  seeks  to  create  is  a 
Christlike  character.  It  does  not  care  how  Godlike 
humanity  may  become.  It  will  never  again  file  any  ob- 
jections to  anything  divine,  either  in  Palestine  or 
America.  It  has  learned  that  society  does  not  need  to  have 
any  of  its  ideas  debased  by  a  resolution.  Christ  becomes 
humanized  rapidly  enough  without  help  from  any 
theological  convention.     We  need  no  enabling  act. 

A  Beautiful  That  Does  Not  Fade. 

The  true  Christian  liberalism  is,  then,  only  the  gradual 
coming  of  a  time  that  changes  not,  of  a  beautiful  that 
does  not  fade,  of  a  good  that  turns  not  into  a  sorrow.  The 
old  Hebrew  ritual  became  a  burden.  Its  material  objects 
became  tiresome  as  soon  as  man  grew  larger  within.  As 
philophers  love  at  last  the  pleasures  of  truth  more  than 
the  pleasures  of  food  and  drink,  so  when  the  world 
reached  development,  it  flung  away  the  washings  of  hands 
and  the  killing  of  sacrifices,  and  worshiped  the  invisible. 
It  took  refuge  in  the  spiritual  Christ.  Then  the  Roman 
age  came  with  its  higher  externals,  but  again  the  world 
moved  on  in  the  great  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury.    And  onward  it  will  still  move. 

If  We  Knew  God  I 

If  we  knew  the  nature  of  Deity  as  we  know  the  nature 
of  earth,  air,  and  water,  we  might  become  very  decided 
over  this  question  of  the  Incarnation,  and  might  declare 
the  heavenly  element  present  or  absent  as  a  chemist  takes 
an  ore,  and  after  an  analysis  declares  the  presence  or 
absence  of  gold.  It  is  not  in  human  power  thus  to  afiirm 
and  deny,  over  the  great  crucible  of  nature  in  which  lies 


DAVID   SWING.  217 

a  soul.  It  is  a  little  illogical,  to  state  in  its  mildest 
form,  for  anyone  to  approach  the  historic  Christ  and 
declare  the  utter  absence  of  Deity,  for  such  a  decision 
reposes  upon  the  assumption  that  man  knows  what  divin- 
ity is,  as  he  knows  the  material  elements.  As  in  the 
theological  kingdom,  men  are  deemed  arrogant  who 
presume  to  know  all  about  God  and  who  will  talk  inces- 
santly about  Three-in-One,  so-  not  wholly  free  from 
assumption  are  those  who  will  hasten  to  declare  Christ 
to  be  wholly  separated  from  any  element  above  the  lofti- 
est human  life.  For  mark  the  difficulty  of  the  situation. 
No  one  knows  what  God  is.  Hence,  no  one  may  hasten 
to  affirm  His  absence  or  presence. 

Christ  the  true    "  Iriberalist." 

He  is  a  partial,  a  half-soul,  who  does  nothing  but  de- 
bate over  our  dust.  Christ  is  the  true  "  liberalist, "  be- 
cause He  did  not  take  refuge  in  silence  or  doubt,  but 
boldly  uttered  His  creed,  and  in  such  terms  that  it  suits 
alike  those  of  all  times  and  continents. 

Be  a  I/ittle  more  Patient. 

It  is  singular  how  impatient  man  is  with  his  neighbor's 
philosophy,  and  how  very  tolerant  he  is  toward  all  be- 
lief that  is  dressed  up  in  a  foreign  costume!  If  a  Presby- 
terian comes  along  singing  the  story  of  Adam  and  Eve, 
and  of  Noah  and  his  dove,  and  of  Daniel  and  his  lions, 
many  persons  in  our  community  grow  indignant  and 
would  exhaust  upon  these  Calvinistic  heads  the  stores  of 
common  abuse  but  if  a  great,  gaudy  man  from  India  or 
Arabia  comes  to  tell  how  we  were  all  toads  once  and  may 
after  this  life  become  an  elephant  or  a  fish,  we  pay  a  dol- 
lar to  hear  the  man  speak  and  then  after  the  lecture  we 
want  him  to  live  with  us  for  a  week.     If  the  Presbyterians 


2 1 8  ECHOES 

come  along  with  the  Old  Testament  we  want  to  have 
them  put  in  jail,  but  if  Edwin  Arnold  comes  along  with 
his  "  lyight  of  Asia"  we  call  him  a  poet  and  love  his  sweet 
little  tales  as  though  they  were  a  part  of  history.  The 
"  Light  of  Moses  "  has  as  much  right  to  a  hearing  as 
the  "  Light  of  Asia,"  and  "Orthodoxy,"  Uke  Hindoo- 
ism,  ought  to  pass  along  in  peace  ail  over  our  continent. 
The  men  who  hold  these  many  forms  of  thought  are  all 
one  as  our  neighbors  and  friends.  Their  morality  and 
goodness  are  made  all  one  by  the  age. 

Thank  God  for  our  Altars. 

When  a  philosophic  liberalism  shall  gather  up  the 
phenomena  of  church  life  as  carefully  as  it  seeks  the 
general  principles  of  religion,  it  will  find  much  of  its 
own  breadth  everywhere  ;  will  find  itself  able  to  join  in 
the  service  of  Episcopalian  or  Presbyterian  without  any 
other  feeling  than  that  of  gratitude  to  God  that  all  over 
earth  His  children  have  an  altar  for  their  hour  of  deep 
worship  and  meditation. 

Our  Moral  World  Has  no  Railway  Speed. 

Our  moral  world  is  dragged  by  oxen.  It  has  no  rail- 
way speed.  The  railway  carries  men's  bodies  rapidly, 
but  it  never  interferes  with  the  old  slow  speed  of  the  in- 
tellect. The  clergymen  who  went  to  the  last  General 
Assembly  traveled  by  the  rapid  car.  They  may  have 
received  messages  by  electricity,  but  the  car  and  the 
electricity  did  not  impart  any  swiftness  to  their  intellect. 

I^et  us  Walk  Humbly. 

We  must  walk  along  in  the  light  we  possess  here — 
the  light  of  common  evidence,  an  evidence  woven  out  of 
history,  experience,  testimony,  and  out  of  the  humility 
that  confesses  that  God  may,  for  aught  we  know,  taber- 
nacle in  the  flesh. 


DAVID   SWING.  219 

You  Cannot  Drive  a  Yoke  of  Oxen  a  Mile  a  Minute. 

The  impatient  soul  will  always  make  a  false  estimate 
of  our  race.  Only  the  most  painstaking  heart  can  keep 
in  mind  all  the  facts  of  the  world.  He  who  drives  a 
yoke  of  oxen  must  give  up  all  hope  of  traveling  a  mile  a 
minute.  If  he  is  impatient  he  must  part  company  with 
those  slow  animals.  But  how  faithful  they  are  !  How 
heavy,  how  gentle,  how  obedient ;    but  oh,  how  slow  ! 

Praying'  for  God  and  Rejecting  Christ. 

If,  then,  the  whole  human  family  has  been  grieving 
over  an  absent  God,  an  invisible,  inaccessible,  formless, 
voiceless  God,  and  has  prayed  that  he  would  break 
through  the  impenetrable  clouds  and  come  near  His 
children,  it  is  a  capricious  logic  that  will  then  reject  a 
Christ  because  the  Deity  cannot  enter  a  limited  world. 
A  strange  world,  that  will  pray  for  a  manifest  Cod  and 
then  reject  the  idea  of  a  manifestation  !  Such  are  the 
difficulties  that  attend  a  peremptory  rejection  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  difficulties  that  may  well 
open  the  heart  to  what  evidence  there  may  be  upon  the 
great  New  Testament  shore.  I  am  not  ready  to  confess 
that  God  never  would  become  limited  by  a  body  for  the 
welfare  of  His  children,  nor  ready  to  confess  that  He 
ever  could  become  thus  limited  in  a  manner  better,  more 
impressive  than  in  the  person  of  Christ. 

The  Son  Of  God. 

If  God  were  destined  ever  to  draw  near  the  human 
sense,  the  best  shape  of  that  earthly  residence  would  be 
such  as  our  Christ.  What  more  impressive  Son  of  God 
need  we  await  than  He  of  the  manger  and  cross  ?  Do 
we  seek  diviner  words,  or  a  diviner  love  or  holier  life  ? 
L,et   the   superhuman   come   to  us  again   and   again,  to 


220  ECHOES 

attach  itself  to  these  years  of  humility  and  sorrow,  and 
the  being  that  should  carry  about  this  mingled  soul  and 
mind  would  always  be  a  Jesus  Christ.  Heaven  and 
earth  meeting  could  not  but  give  us  the  Man  of  Sorrows 
and  sympathy.  The  upper  purity  and  the  lower  sin, 
meeting,  could  not  but  give  us  the  cross.  Such  upper 
life  wedding  the  chores  of  death  could  not  but  give  us 
the  resurrection. 

Presbyterian  and  Episcopal  Worshipers  Much  Alike. 
While  devotion  to  the  transient  is  an  injury,  a  drawing 
of  the  heart  away  from  the  great,  yet  in  our  age  the 
narrowness  is  larger  in  theory  than  in  life,  for  with  the 
exception  of  here  and  there  an  individual.  Christians 
are  holding  to  the  small  ideas  with  only  a  gentle  grasp, 
and  are  daily  becoming  more  and  more  heirs  of  a  full 
emancipation.  If  you  will  select  two  churches  of  this 
city;  if  you  will  choose  from  the  hundreds  of  sanctuaries 
two  seemingl)^  so  far  apart  as  the  Second  Presbyterian 
and  the  Grace  Episcopal  Churches,  and  will,  by  a  care- 
ful analysis,  examine  the  souls  that  worship  at  those  two 
shrines,  3- ou  will  find  no  marked  qualities  that  distin- 
guish between  the  two  throngs.  Coming  from  the  same 
avenues  and  from  the  same  conditions  of  life,  the  faith, 
and  hope,  and  character,  of  the  two  groups  are  the  same. 
Both  trees  will  let  fall  the  same  fruit  in  the  autumn  of 
the  grave.  This  resemblance  comes  to  pass  from  the 
fact  that  only  an  ignorant  age  can  be  the  perfect  slave  of 
minor  ideas,  and  that  in  our  century  these  two  represen- 
tative congregations  are  children  of  only  general  truths, 
and  are  carrying  along  with  them  a  diversity  that  is  be- 
coming external,  getting  read}-,  like  the  chrysalis  of  the 
butterfly,  to  fall  away  and  go  back  to  dust,  handing  over 
the  inmate  to  wings. 


DAVID   SWING.  221 

Goldwiti  Smith. 

Unexpected  famines  or  earthquakes,  or  wars,  or  con- 
flagrations will  come  and  change  a  nation's  drift.  Or  a 
single  individual  like  a  Luther,  or  a  Savonarola,  or  a 
Bollinger,  or  a  Napoleon,  will  come  along,  and  by  him- 
self alone  change  the  page  of  history  for  a  hundred  or 
five  hundred  years.  Goldwin  Smith  says  beautifully 
that  the  scientific  minds  will  always  be  able  to  analyze 
the  sunlight  and  to  explain  the  formation  of  clouds,  but 
they  will  never  be  able  to  paint  a  sunset  in  advance,  and 
tell  us  how  the  clouds  will  marshal  themselves,  or  from 
what  urns  the  colors  wili  be  poured  out. 

Mere  Denial  a  Poor  Foundation  for  a  Church. 

In  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  exact  defini- 
tions in  religion  were  as  popular  as  statues,  pictures  and 
jewels.  The  man  who  could  produce  a  good,  strong 
doctrine  was  reckoned  a  genius.  Seroctus  was  put  to 
death  for  being  a  Unitarian.  He  and  Calvin  had  made 
new  doctrines  and  each  bade  fair  to  become  as  celebrated 
as  Angelo  or  Raphael.  But  Calvin  held  the  political 
power  and  he  put  to  death  his  rival.  Unitarianism  was 
thus  born  out  of  an  age  that  worshiped  an  opinion. 
When  certain  men  happened  upon  the  idea  that  Jesus 
was  a  man  they  hastened  to  found  a  church  upon  the 
idea,  and  must  have  been  happy  over  the  loss  of  a  divine 
leader.  They  are  not  now  so  happy  over  opinions,  and 
would  not  really  care  much  if  all  the  men  and  women  in 
America  should  suppose  the  Son  of  Man  to  be  also  the 
Son  of  God.  Unitarianism  has  therefore  lost  its  early 
charm,  and  would  no  doubt  love  to  reach  some  name 
that  would  imply  simply  the  mental  and  moral  advance 
of  society  under  the  Nazarene  flag.  A  church  cannot 
wall  stand  upon  only  a  denial  of  somebody's  alleged 


222  ECHOES 

divinity.  It  can  stand  better  upon  the  growing  divinity 
of  mankind.  Orthodoxy  has  gained  much  by  its  having 
the  more  of  God  on  its  hands.  The  Universalists  find 
themselves  embarrassed  also  by  a  name.  That  society 
was  created  while  the  public  mind  was  still  fond  of  exact 
definitions  as  to  all  things  that  pertained  to  the  spiritual 
universe.  Reasoning  from  the  goodness  and  power  of 
God,  and  from  the  intercession  and  love  of  Christ,  cer- 
tain theologians  reached  the  conclusion  that  all  souls 
would  find  at  last  holiness  and  happiness.  The  great 
river  of  human  life  was  flowing  toward  a  happy  country. 
And  so  this  thought  and  belief  were  called  Universalism, 
and  were  made  the  basis  of  a  new  society. 

Those  Who  Seek  Justice  Should  Be  Just. 

There  might  be  a  marching  army  in  whose  flags  there 
would  be  a  profound  significance.  The  heart  can  easily 
see  a  host  of  ragged  and  haggard  women  and  children 
marching  toward  some  legislature  to  beg  for  some  new 
laws  relating  to  the  sale  of  costly  and  destructive  drinks. 
Could  these  suffering  families  be  assembled  in  some  plain 
that  would  afford  room  for  a  few  millions  of  sad  mortals, 
perhaps  they  could  tell  us  with  a  new  kind  of  eloquence 
that  the  time  had  come  for  the  age  to  move  a  few  steps 
upward — must  carry  a  banner  of  holiness.  The  news- 
paper has  much  power  indeed,  so  has  the  written  petition 
signed  by  a  half  million  names,  but  so  would  there  be 
power  in  a  milion  upturned  faces  over  which  faces  lines 
had  been  cut  deep  by  poverty  and  tears — faces  of  children 
that  had  never  seen  any  happiness — faces  of  women  who 
had  once  been  beautiful  and  joyous.  But  no  such  host 
was  that  which  took  a  railway  train  by  brute  force;  and  no 
such  host  is  that  which  drank  and  caroused  by  the  banks 
of  the  Missouri.     Men  need  not  march-  in  search  of  a 


DAVID  SWING.  223 

higher  law  if  they  must  pause  in  the  saloons  on  the  way. 
Men  who  go  upon  a  holy  pilgramage  must  carry  a  little 
of  holiness  with  them.  Men  who  make  long  journeys  to 
plead  for  justice  ought  to  carry  with  them  not  a  little  of 
that  valuable  article.  The  beggar  who  wears  on  his  bosom 
the  card:  "I  am  dumb,"  should  not  talk  much.  But 
charity  often  displaces  the  intellect  and  makes  women 
send  bouquets  to  murderers,  and  to  accept  from  a  debased 
drunkard  an  offer  of  marriage;  for  charity  is  a  rapid- 
sweeping  sentiment,  while  wisdom  is  a  slow,  limping 
thought.  It  is  most  probable  that  the  troubles  of  to-day 
will  soon  decline  and  perish.  The  marching  men  reveal 
no  definite  aim  and  display  no  moral  worth.  In  1776  our 
fathers  knew  what  they  wanted.  The  army  of  Washing- 
ton knew  why  it  marched  and  endured  privations.  The 
slaves  of  the  South  knew  why  they  often  ran  at  night, 
toward  the  north  star.  When  thf  soldiers  moved  toward 
Washington  City  in  1861,  they  knew  the  nature  of  their 
errand.  It  is  quite  fatal  to  these  troubles  of  to-day  that 
these  little  armies  need  an  interpreter. 

The  Pilgrims  to  Washington. 

No  defense  can  be  made  of  that  delegation  which 
having  set  out  to  find  at  Washington  some  more  perfect 
form  of  justice  concluded  they  could  travel  best  in  a 
stolen  train.  Their  idea  that  by  trampling  upon  law  for 
three  thousand  miles  they  could  the  better  plead  for  more 
law  is  perhaps  the  most  original  idea  for  which  an  army 
of  philosophers  ever  marched.  Don  Quixote  rode  over 
Spain  to  redress  wrongs,  but  he  was  not  crazy  enough  to 
make  his  benevolent  journey  on  a  stolen  horse.  If, 
however,  any  of  these  migrating  groups  are  honest  in 
their  belief  that  they  can  make  ideas  impressive  by 
carrying  them  by  the  living   human  form  they  seem  to 


224 


ECHOES 


possess  the  right  thus  to  wander.  There  is  no  law 
against  the  use  of  the  public  roads  that  may  lead  from 
one  ocean  to  the  other,  but  the  rights  of  the  road  do  not 
reach  over  into  the  fields.  If  the  philosophic  travelers 
find  charity  along  the  road  the  age  dare  not  complain. 
There  is  always  a  charity  that  will  aid  an  army  to  go  to 
the  next  town.  The  daily  papers  are  erring  greatly  in 
not  finding  out  for  the  public  who  these  men  are  who  are 
tramping  along  toward  the  Capitol.  We  are  informed 
that  they  are  lazy  tramps  who  love  to  be  fed  along  a 
thousand-mile  road  ;  that  if  well  fed  they  would  make 
the  road  wind  all  over  the  world  in  the  temperate  zone  ; 
but  the  whole  affair  is  so  large  and  so  serious  that  the 
people  would  rather  exchange  a  great  mass  of  guess 
work  for  a  few  facts.  A  few  reporters  traveling  with 
these  itinerants  a  few  days  could  learn  the  character  and 
the  ideas  of  the  mass.  Their  character  should  be  known. 
Are  they  all  idle  men  who  would  rather  tramp  in  a  body 
than  move  in  the  old  isolation  of  one  by  one  ?  Are  they 
disciples  of  Henr}^  George,  with  hearts  set  upon  paying 
land  rent  to  the  Nation  ?  Are  they  Republicans  going 
to  Washington  with  some  plea  against  hard  times  ?  Are 
they  Democrats  on  their  way  to  tender  to  Mr.  Cleveland 
some  advice  from  the  distant  West  ?  In  an  age  of  tele- 
graphs, newspapers  and  indefatigable  reporters,  no  analy- 
sis of  these  armies  has  3^et  been  brought  in.  That  each 
division  contains  idle  and  bad  men  is  evident,  but  we 
should  all  know  the  dominant  moral  character  of  the 
crowds.  While  the  public  waits  for  the  facts  it  maj'  well 
marvel  at  the  many  experiences  through  which  our 
particular  spot  of  earth  has  passed.  And  each  experience 
has  been  an  advance.  Here  great  seas  of  grass  rolled 
many  thousands  of  years  ago.  The  climate  was  hotter 
then  and   made  great  coal  beds  out  of   its  excessive 


DAVID  SWING.  Si5 

vegetation.  The  wild  animals  were  larger  than  the 
buffalo  and  the  wild  horse.  At  last  the  mound  builders 
and  the  red  man  came,  exiles,  perhaps,  from  some  conti- 
nent now  lost.  What  a  rude,  sad  thing  were  the  mound 
builders'  age  and  the  red  man's  age !  Murder  was 
hardly  a  crime.  It  was  not  dangerous  to  the  murderer, 
and  not  much  of  a  loss  to  the  one  killed.  The  popula- 
tion could  never  have  been  dense,  for  there  was  no 
science  of  living.  The  only  science  that  flourished  was 
that  of  putting  people  to  death. 

Music  the  Child  of  Christianity. 

There  is  an  art  which  Christianity  created  almost 
wholly,  asking  little  of  outside  aid.  Music  is  that  pecu- 
liar child.  The  long  continued  vision  of  heaven,  the 
struggle  of  the  tones  of  voice  and  of  instrument  to  find 
something  worthy  of  the  deep  feelings  of  religion,  re- 
sulted at  last  in  those  mighty  chants  that  formed  the 
mountain  springs  of  our  musical  Nile.  There  could 
have  been  no  music  had  not  depth  of  feeling  come  to 
man.  The  men  who  went  up  to  the  pagan  temples  went 
with  no  such  love,  with  no  sorrow  of  penitence,  with  no 
exultant  joy.  It  was  necessary  for  Jesus  Christ  to  come 
along  and  transfer  religion  from  the  form  to  the  spirit, 
and  from  an  "airy  nothingness"  to  a  love  stronger  than 
life,  before  hymns  like  those  of  Luther,  and  Wesley,  and 
Watts,  could  break  from  the  heart.  The  doctrine  of 
repentance  must  live  in  the  world  awhile  before  we  can 
have  a  "Miserere,"  and  the  exultant  hope  of  the  Chris- 
tian must  come  before   the   mind  can  invent  a  "Gloria." 

Old  World  Blooms. 

As  the  lilies  bloomed  before  the  Savior  pointed  out 
that  group  of  blossoms  to  his  followers,  so  the  mind  and 


226  .        ECHOES 

soul  of  man  began  to  bloom  in  the  old  world  where  Hiram 
worked  in  gold,  where  Miriam  sang,  where  Job  and 
David  wrote,  where  the  Greek  orators  thundered  and  the 
Greek  poets  sang.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  greatness  of 
earth  began,  not  with  Christ  but  with  God.  We  need 
not  take  the  garlands  from  the  Father  to  bestow  them 
upon  the  Son.  The  grandeur  of  earth  began  when  God 
said,  "  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image."  Let  us  never 
set  up  such  rash  claims  for  Christianity  that  when  our 
youth  pass  from  childhood  to  manhood  and  womanhood, 
and  begin  to  read  books,  they  will  need  to  remodel  their 
opinions  and  unlearn  the  lessons  of  early  life,  and  thus 
run  the  peril  of  falling  from  a  once  childlike  faith  into 
the  dreary  land  of  infidelity  or  doubt. 

Caste  in  India. 
Ih  India  a  man  is  made  great  or  small  by  his  caste.  A 
Brahman  may  all  life  long  be  a  perfect  blockhead,  but  no 
harm  comes  from  that  condition  of  intellect,  for  he  was 
born  great.  People  fall  on  their  faces  before  him,  not 
because  he  has  any  sense  or  virtue,  but  because  he  was 
born  great.  Then  it  is  in  vain  if  a  carpenter  attains  to 
great  learning,  for  he  was  born  miserable  and  must  re- 
main true  to  his  birth.  Along  come  the  Western  nations, 
and  men  and  women  ma}'  all  rise  up  to  one  class — a 
great  humanity.  Each  individual  may  draw  strength 
from  the  whole  world.  The  mind  need  not  be  oppressed 
by  the  narrows  and  wild  beasts  around  Job  and  Dame. 
It  may  move  out  into  the  more  boundless,  open  country. 
Many  of  the  Christian  churches  of  our  day  find  them- 
selves embarrassed  by  the  names  which  their  ancestors 
selected  and  loved  long  ago.  In  the  whole  past  mankind 
seems  to  have  loved  some  form  of  personal  distinction. 
The   mind  was  too  small  to  conceive  of  and  love  the  re- 


DAVID  SWING.  227 

semblances  in  our  race;  it  was  more  fond  of  the  differences. 
It  was  common  and  degrading  to  be  a  member  of  the 
human  family;  and  it  was  easy  to  claim  some  special 
feature  of  the  intellect. 

The  Word  "God." 
The  word  God  was  used  to  atone  for  indolence  of  in- 
quiry or  poverty  of  thoiight.  Also  superstition  loaded 
down  the  sacred  idea  and  kept  the  Deity  before  the  world 
as  the  performer  of  all  sorts  of  high  and  low  tragedy  and 
comedy.  The  modern  study  into  natural  causes  has 
affected  not  a  little  the  relation  of  a  God  to  an  event, 
and  hence  has  perhaps  given  to  the  present  a  little  more 
than  its  share  of  the  materialistic  spirit.  I  need  not 
pause  to  argue  the  question  whether  absolute  atheism  is 
possible.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  mind  can  ever  reach 
a  perfect  assurance  that  there  is  no  God.  But  there  is  a 
practical,  or  rather  influential,  atheism  possible,  and  not 
only  possible,  but  in  our  day  such  a  non-belief  seems 
passing  beyond  its  former  limited  proportions.  In  view 
of  the  approximative  atheism  we  now  witness,  it  seems 
timely  we  should  all  ask  ourselves  and  each  other  what 
would  be  the  effect  upon  morals  of  a  widespread  dis- 
belief? 

The  Natural  World. 
Wonderful  as  the  unfolding  of  the  natural  world  is  the 
unfolding  of  the  world  spiritual.  The  natural  world 
is  the  schoolhouse  in  which  we  may,  if  we  will,  learn 
the  higher  truths  of  the  moral  universe.  But  as  child- 
ren often  sit  in  the  schoolroom  all  through  their  early 
years  unwilling  to  learn  the  lessons,  longing  for  play  or 
idleness,  so  we  older  ones  pass  our  time  in  the  great 
academy  of  nature  with  our  idle  eyes  wandering  far  away 
from  the  valuable  page. 


228  ECHOES 

The  Golden  Rod. 

The  plant  called  the  golden  rod  abounds  in  America, 
but  when  we  speak  of  the  Constitution  of  the  Nation 
that  beautiful  plant  is  omitted.  Without  that  yellow 
blossom  the  Nation  could  move  on.  Thus  some  denom- 
ination may  be  a  flower  in  the  field,  but  it  can  not  be 
recorded  in  the  philosophy  of  piety,  for  should  that 
blossom  cast  all  its  colored  leaves,  on  would  go  the 
great  wheels  of  the  Nazarene  science.  All  the  churches, 
be  they  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  sects,  must  meet  in  the 
one  end— the  moral  education  of  the  unrolling  race. 
Christ  showed  what  hidden  splendor  lay  in  this  earth, 
the  task  remains  to  educate  the  world  and  make  this 
Nazarene  beauty  roll  over  all  the  zones  of  human  life. 
An  intellectual  training  will  not  suffice.  That  form  of 
awakening  must  be  accompained  by  a  great  study  of 
moral  beauty.  State  and  church  must  combine  in  the 
one  task  of  over-throwing  vice.  As  artists  look  toward 
ideals,  as  all  the  arts  are  proud  of  their  ideals,  thus  must 
the  church  and  State  combine  in  making  more  and  more 
white  the  souls  of  each  new  generation.  A  government 
which  permits  a  low  literature  to  flourish,  drunkenness, 
gambling  and  all  vices  to  be  the  pleasures  of  its  citizens, 
ought  soon  to  die  and  become  trampled  over  again  by 
the  feet  of  savages  and  the  hoofs  of  wild  cattle.  The 
moral  education  of  the  people  must  more  and  more  be- 
come the  end  of  nation  and  church. 

Morals  Born  of  Belief  in  God. 

The  world's  morals  have  as  a  fact  descended  from  a  be- 
lief in  a  God.  However  far  back  we  look,  the  develop- 
ment of  conscience  and  virtue  is  only  a  form  assumed  by 
the  development  of  an  idea  of  a  Supreme  Ruler.  The 
human  race  has  always  placed  in  the  Jieayens  a  standard 


DAVID   SWING.  229 

of  right  and  wrong,  and  has  gazed  upward  as  if  to  read 
there  the  path  of  duty.  In  the  oldest  records  of  Homer, 
or  Moses,  or  Zoroaster,  of  Chaldea,  Egypt,  or  India, 
there  is  to  be  seen  a  Being,  above  human,  standing  as  the 
supreme  right  of  the  universe.  The  Vedas  of  the  old 
Hindoos  all  overflow  with  this  consciousness  of  a  God. 
One  of  the  sacred  books  says:  "  The  great  lyord  of  these 
worlds  sees  as  if  he  were  near.  A  man  may  think  he 
walks  by  stealth  but  the  gods  know  it.  If  a  man  stands, 
or  walks,  or  hides;  if  two  persons  whisper  together,  God 
Varuna  knows  it.  He  is  there  as  a  third.  He  who 
should  flee  far  beyond  the  sky,  even  he  would  not  escape 
Varuna  the  king."  Such  is  the  religious  spirit  of  a  liter- 
ature which  two  thousand  years  before  Christ  lay  in  ten 
large  books  spread  out  before  an  almost  countless  multi- 
tude of  souls.  While  Abraham  and  his  followers  were 
looking  up  to  Jehovah  by  faith,  influenced  by  a  celestial 
city  that  had  foundations,  while  Jacob,  in  a  dream,  was 
beholding  a  ladder  reaching  from  earth  to  sky  with  di- 
vine messengers  upon  the  steps,  the  Aryans  were  moving 
across  India  with  their  hearts  as  full  as  Jacob's  soul  was 
with  the  presence  of  God  and  His  angels. 

"Oh,  How  I  l/ove  Thy  I^aw!  " 

Read  upon  tables  of  rock  the  laws  of  industry,  of  will, 
of  faith,  of  love,  of  justice,  and  cry  out  with  the  ancient 
worshiper,  "Oh,  how  I  love  Thy  law  !  "  He  that  erases 
one  of  these  commandments  makes  of  your  soul  a  deserted 
house.  It  is  full  of  joy  and  language  and  music  no  more. 
I  speak  not  simply  in  the  name  of  religion.  All  the  hours 
and  years  of  this  life  ask  you  to  confess  the  supreme 
power  of  the  will,  of  faith,  of  hope.  You  can  not  despise 
the  mighty  forces  without  becoming  "as  a  house  without 
inhabitant."     Often  have  we  seen  within  the  boundaries 


23© 


ECHOES 


of  a  single  heart  an  image  that  "deserted  village"  of  the 

poet. 

Sweet  smiling  village  !  loveliest  of  the  lawn, 
Thy  sports  are  fled,  and  all  thy  charms  withdrawn, 
Amidst  thy  bowers  the  tyrant's  hand  is  seen 
And  desolation  saddens  all  the  green. 

The  Providence  of  I<aw. 

Having  given  up  the  providence  of  detached  events  we 
must  all  pass  over  to  the  providence  of  the  law.  The 
walls  of  despotism  will  not  fall  by  blowing  of  horns;  the 
schoolhouse  bell  has  more  potency.  The  Red  Sea  will 
not  part  for  an  army;  the  growth  of  education  and  free- 
dom will  dissolve  the  armies  on  the  sea's  banks  and  turn 
the  soldiers  into  farmers  or  scholars.  The  sun  will  not 
pause  over  a  battlefield;  the  age  of  the  intellect  will  sow 
the  battlefield  with  wheat  and  will  ask  of  the  sun  only 
the  regular  rising  and  setting  of  summer  and  winter.  An 
event  uses  God  for  only  a  day,  but  law  needs  God  every- 
where and  forever.  With  the  ancients  God  was  like  a 
crash  of  thunder,  an  earthquake,  but  we  have  drifted  into 
years  in  which  God  is  like  the  light  and  the  atmosphere 
— the  perpetual  accompaniment  of  man. 

O,  Boasting  Century! 

O,  boasting  century,  question  yourself  thus:  Do  you 
fully  believe  in  temperance?  Do  you  act  out  your 
belief?  Do  you  believe  in  kindness?  Do  you  act 
kindly  ?  Do  you  read  and  write  poetry  on  the  beauty  of 
simplicity?  Do  you  declaim  over  the  beauty  of  a  life 
devoted  to  nature,  to  man,  and  to  God  ?  Do  you  act  out 
the  philosophy  of  such  simplicity  ?  Do  you  ask  a  friend 
to  come  and  take  a  simple  meal  with  you,  and  then  do 
you  and  be  sit  down  to  a  glutton's  feast,  and  after  three 


DAVID  SWING.  231 

hours  of  excess  rise  with  the  body  injured  and  the  mind 
beclouded?  O,  boasting  century,  dost  thou  thus  live? 
If  so,  the  golden  age  will  not  come.  It  will  wait  until 
thou  shalt  have  detached  thyself  from  all  this  injurious 
and  comprehensive  lie.  But  when  thy  mortal  nature 
shall  become  the  companion  of  thy  learning,  then  shall 
the  flowers  of  paradise  begin  to  bloom  at  thy  feet  and  her 
sky  to  grow  rosy  over  thee. 

History  Full  of  Ruins. 
History  is  full  of  the  ruins  of  empirer  and  cities. 
Could  you  sit  down  by  each  ruin  and  find  the  causes 
that  brought  it,  only  one  report  would  come  from 
Palmyra,  or  Thebes,  or  Babylon,  or  Athens,  or  Alexan- 
dria :  "We  violated  the  laws  of  life  and  are  dead." 
Within  their  once-living  hands  and  hearts  the  laws  of 
industry,  of  morals,  of  social  life,  of  political  well-being, 
were  broken  and  death  came.  If  from  any  cause  the  law 
of  gravitation  should  be  broken  for  an  hour  by  our  earth, 
it  would  fall  away  never  to  run  her  beautiful  circle  again. 
The  sun's  fiery  ocean  would,  in  a  brief  period,  receive 
the  falling,  unfortunate  star.  But  the  law  of  gravitation 
is  only  one  upon  the  great  statute  book.  The  old  nations 
have  all  fallen  because  they  regarded  not  the  mighty 
decalogue  written  upon  their  rocks,  their  fields,  their 
palaces,  their  homes,  their  hearts.  The  story  of  Moses 
is  perpetual  and  universal.  Encamp  where  men  may,  at 
Sinai  or  in  America,  there  is  always  a  Moses  coming 
with  shining  face  carrying  in  his  arms  the  laws  of  God. 
The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die.  But  it  shall  be  well 
with  the  righteous. 

Dens  I/ike  Palaces. 

As  those  who  live  by  the  income  of  vice  make  their 
saloons  and  dens  more  and  more  like  palaces  that  the 


232  ECHOBS 

youth  may  be  made  familiar  with  all  those  haunts — 
familiar  through  the  omnipresent  glare  of  a  false  beauty, 
so  those  who  live  in  the  name  of  some  great  but  new 
principle  must  daily  emblazon  it  before  the  world  that 
the  onlooking  race  may  gradually  become  familiar,  not 
with  a  destroying  vice,  but  with  a  coming  virtue.  The 
new  idea  must  be  met  with  in  poetry^  in  prose,  in  ser- 
mons, in  history,  in  philosophy  ;  and,  at  last,  hearts 
long  closed  will  open  and  admit  the  new  and  beautiful 
guest. 

A  Universe  Under  I^aw* 

Some  declare  that  the  world  seems  less  sacred  and 
charming  to  them  since  science  has  brought  in  such  an 
array  of  second  causes  between  them  and  the  marvels  of 
nature,  filling  up  with  physical  or  mental  forces  a  place 
once  full  of  the  Heavenly  Father.  But  this  disappoint- 
ment is  destined  to  be  only  temporary,  for  as  soon  as  the 
mind  can  become  fully  acquainted  with  the  conception 
of  a  universe  of  law,  it  will  find  the  old  world  of  acci- 
dent or  miracle  a  poor,  small  thing  compared  with  a  uni- 
verse all  moving  under  law. 

Wisdom  Not  Fickle. 

True  wisdom  is  not  fickle.  It  is  not  a  time-serving 
truth.  As  Antigone  in  the  drama  gave  her  heart  to 
those  moral  laws  which  were  more  enduring  than  the 
throne  of  Thebes,  thus  the  genius  of  Christianity,  more 
divine  than  Antigone,  must  give  her  heart  to  principals 
more  eternal  than  that  of  offering  a  lamb  or  an  ox  or  a 
dove  for  the  sin  of  a  human  soul.  Paul  exhorted  his 
Roman  friends  to  bring  their  own  living  bodies  to  their 
God,  not  their  slaughtered  forms,  that  this  would  be  a 
logical  service  holy  and  acceptable  to  heaven. 


DAVID   SWING.  ±^^ 

A  Golden  Age. 

All  we  know  in  reference  to  a  golden  age  is  that  the 
human  mind  and  heart  are  growing  larger  and  somewhat 
more  virtuous.  The  crime  and  vice  in  society  still  make 
difficult  the  life  of  the  optimist,  but  it  is  easy  to  believe 
that  a  little  of  moral  success  will  make  success  more  easy , 
as  the  second  million  of  dollars  is  more  easily  gained 
than  the  first.  The  reign  of  law  does  not  imply  an  ad- 
vance always  sluggiish.  Science  came  by  law,  but  it 
came  more  rapidly  in  the  latest  times  and  ran  over  more 
space  in  this  century  than  it  passed  over  in  the  ten  cen- 
turies that  preceeded.  So  culture  and  morality  coming 
by  the  laws  of  education  and  experience  may  quicken 
their  pace  in  the  future  and  make  the  twentieth  or  twenty- 
first  century  many  times  as  brilliant  and  moral  as  the 
times  in  which  we  live.  The  processes  of  nature  are 
often  slow,  but  they  need  not  possess  such  a  quality.  We 
have  been  1, 800  years  in  reaching  what  civilization  we 
now  possess,  but  two  or  three  centuries  might  quadruple 
our  stock  of  mental  and  moral  power.  Each  new  mod- 
ern century  comes  clothed  with  additional  power.  It 
holds  the  past  the  more  perfectly  and  then  elicits  more 
and  more  out  of  the  present.  I^aw  would  just  as  will- 
ingly fly  like  a  bird  as  creep  like  a  snail.  Having  ex- 
changed a  spasmodic  world  for  one  of  natural  law  we 
need  not  expect  the  new  wheels  to  run  slowly. 

God  in  the  Holy  Place. 

Among  the  Hebrews  God  was  in  the  holy  place  ;  in  the 
adjoining  tribes  He  was  in  the  groves  ;  in  Egypt  He  was 
embodied  in  two  brothers,  Osis  and  Osius ;  in  Persia  He 
was  in  the  sun ;  in  Greece  He  was  on  Olympus  and  at 
Delphi  ;  in  Rome  He  was  in  the  thunder,  in  the  ocean  in 
the  winds,  and  was  betrayed  by  the  dreams  of  a  Caesar's 


234  ECHOES 

wife  or  the  flight  of  his  doves.  Thus  came  all  the  old 
literature  with  the  deity  for  its  ornament  and  eloquence. 
It  was  not  Isaiah  alone  who  saw  the  Lord  coming  in 
peace  and  splendor,  the  wolf  the  friend  of  the  lamb,  the 
lion  the  playmate  of  the  ox,  and  the  little  child  leading 
all  by  its  love  ;  Virgil  deduced  the  same  ultimate  result 
from  the  reign  of  the  omnipotent  King  and  sang  forth 
that  a  great  era  was  about  to  emerge  from  the  ages,  that 
the  goddess  of  justice  was  soon  to  ascend  her  throne, 
that  the  Saturnian  age,  that  of  gold  was  coming,  was 
coming,  a  new  race  was  about  to  descend  from  the  sky, 
no  one  would  fear  the  wild  lions,  the  serpents  would 
cease  to  exist,  the  sap  of  the  oak  would  become  honey. 
Wander  whither  the  reader  may  in  those  generations 
which  preceded  Christ ;  read  in  the  pages  of  Hesiod  or 
Pindar,  or  Sophocles  or  Virgil,  or  in  the  inscriptions  on 
Egyptian  stones,  and  he  can  never  get  away  from  the 
empire  of  God.  Paul  simply  summed  up  all  past  feel- 
ing w^hen  he  used  those  words  :  ' '  The  only  potentate — 
the  King  of  Kings." 

Christian  Philosophy  Begins  With  God. 
The  Christian  philosophy  begins  with  a  God;  it  then 
reveals  Christ  as  showing  the  divineness  of  the  earth;  it 
demands  the  personal  virtue  of  each  human  being;  it 
makes  the  moral  education  of  the  people  the  greatest  aim 
of  person  and  church  and  state;  but  mighty  as  these 
truths  are  they  are  not  enough.  It  goes  so  much  further 
that  the  language  of  earth  can  not  follow  it.  It  opens 
the  gates  of  eternity  and  asks  the  beings  who  on  earth 
possessed  a  nature  only  a  little  lower  than  the  angels  to 
a  second  and  longer  life;  to  come  with  its  torn  banners 
and  imperfect  music,  to  come  with  its  tears  and  mysteries 
and  happiness.  It  obeys  the  summons  and  transfers  all 
at  last  to  another  land. 


DAVID  SWING.  235 

Nothing  is  Independent. 

There  is  not  much  that  is  accidental  in  the  life  of  an 
individual  or  a  nation.  One  of  the  facts  that  the  modern 
times  are  establishing  is  that  the  whole  universe  is  under 
the  reign  of  law.  From  the  most  immense  and  most 
remote  sun  to  the  smallest  atom  of  dust,  law  is  forming 
and  retaining  and  guiding  all  things  at  all  moments. 
Nothing  is  independent.  Things  and  events  once  referred 
directly  to  God  are  now  referred  to  the  laws  of  God  as  to 
the  invariable  agent  of  the  Almighty.  This  great  infer- 
ence aflfects  not  in  the  least  the  idea  or  providence  of  God, 
for  here  as  among  human  actors  the  principle  applies 
that  what  one  does  through  an  agent  he  does  through 
himself. 

What  Will  Atheism  Bring  ? 

But  if  thus  seen  through  a  dark  glass,  the  idea  of  God 
has  so  molded  all  thought  and  character,  what  will  atheism 
ever  bring  to  place  alongside  that  conception  of  the  Cre- 
ator that  is  now  trying  to  burst  into  the  world  through 
the  windows  of  a  holier  temple  ?  If  the  altars  of  religion 
helped  man  even  when  those  altars  asked  man  to  go  forth 
to  cruel  war  and  cruel  persecution,  what  may  not  the 
human  race  expect  from  them  when  the  only  beings  that 
shall  bow  before  them  shall  be  brothers,  saints,  penitents, 
and  the  only  angels  above  the  new  mercy-seat  shall  be 
the  seraph  of  love  and  the  cherub  of  light  ? 

Nothing  Available  on  l^arth  But  Man. 

Paul,  like  William  Hamilton,  saw  nothing  valuable 
upon  earth  but  man,  and  nothing  great  in  man  but  his 
soul.  Paul  passed  from  the  career  of  a  harsh  ruler,  or 
rather  brutal  underling,  over  to  that  unbounded  charity 
that   pities  all,  and  loves  all,  and  helps  all.     The  Jewish 


236  ECHOES 

nation  was  too  limited  to  satisfy  his  love.  He  became 
the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  because  the  Jews  were  only  a 
little  sect.  The  Gentiles  were  a  great  world,  hundreds 
of  millions  strong.  Paul  is  the  being  in  history,  after 
Jesus  Christ,  that  took  into  his  love  the  human  race. 
The  rest  of  the  human  history  is  uncheered  by  any  in- 
stance of  a  self-denial  that  had  all  man  for  its  object. 
Some  of  the  Greeks  wrote  about  the  oneness  of  man,  and 
one  of  them  boasted  that  he  w^as  a  "citizen  of  the 
world. ' '  But  the  the  theory  of  nobleness  found  its  ear- 
leist  realization  in  Judea. 

Inspiration  Does  Not  Deal  in  Common  Things. 

An  elevation,  an  inspiration  the  most  divine  will  not 
utter  any  details  about  common  or  uncommon  events. 
Our  fathers  were  awakened  to  the  love  of  freedom,  but 
that  awakening  did  not  tell  them  that  the  struggle  for  a 
republic  would  last  seven  years;  did  not  tell  them  how 
many  States  would  be  added  to  the  first  group;  that 
some  States  would  lie  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  some  on 
the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  Thus  the  holy  men  of  old  were 
told  in  what  paths  to  walk,  but  it  was  not  told  them  how 
far  the  paths  w^ere  to  run.  It  w^as  the  human  zeal  and 
hope  that  said:  these  paths  will  bring  us  to  heaven  in  the 
morning. 

The  Millennium, 

,  We  children  of  the  nineteenth  century  must  discard, 
not  the  "inspiration  of  St.  John  but  only  his  personal 
dream.  The  vision  of  a  divine  kingdom  must  open  up 
before  us  as  it  opened  before  the  early  Christians,  but  we 
must  believe  long  indeed  the  paths  that  lead  thither,  and 
the  thousand  years  which  seemed  so  satisfactory  to  the 
saints  must  be  changed  by  us  into  many  times  ten  thou- 


DAVID   SWING.  237 

sand;  for  the  word  "millennium"  was  only  a  poeticterm 
which  we  now  see  signifies  the  infinite  future  of  man- 
kind. 

Why  Dumas  Failed. 
Castelar  says  that  Alexandre  Dumas  failed  of  great- 
ness because  "  he  was  willing  to  tell  a  lie  in  his  books." 
lyiterature  reposes  upon  truth.  So  a  good  life  reposes 
upon  common  sense,  and  cannot  stand  upon  a  basis  of 
folly.  Why  should  God  send  other  angels  if  we  despise 
the  first  ? 

Doctrines  Sink,  Character  Rises. 

An  effort  is  now  being  made  by  some  orthodox  clergy- 
men to  make  the  church  consist  of  persons  who  are  try- 
ing to  live  a  life  like  that  of  Christ.  Doctrines  are  to 
sink  and  character  is  to  rise.  It  is  as  though  the  books 
on  astronomy  were  to  give  place  to  the  magnificence  of 
the  sun  ;  it  is  as  though  the  gifted  mother  were  to  put 
aside  Cicero's  essay  on  friendship  and,  instead  of  reading, 
puts  her  arms  around  her  idolized  child  !  Wonderful 
discovery,  that  a  Christian  ought  to  be  like  Christ ! 
Pvom  such  a  discovery  we  might  infer  that  a  musician 
ought  to  love  music  and  that  a  singer  should  love  song  ! 
What  a  discovery  !  It  follows  that  an  orator  should  have 
language  and  that  the  rainbow  should  love  its  seven 
arches  and  its  seven  colors  ! 

dressing. 

The  great  German,  I^essing,  looked  upon  morality  as 
being  virtually  God.  God  is  an  omnipresent  Spirit  and 
when  man  is  upright  he  is  with  God.  I^essing  thought 
this  idea  the  one  and  eternal  gospel.  No  time  or  place 
could  change  it.  It  would  stand  all  alone  without  any 
consideration  of  rewards  and  punishments.      In  this  L,es- 


238  ECHOES 

sing  followed  some  of  the  great  students  of  antiquity. 
Christ  made  this  human  virtue  the  explanation  of  man 
upon  earth,  but  he  did  not  attempt  to  separate  morality 
from  its  reward.  His  style  and  his  logic  was  not  severe 
enough  to  permit  him  to  plant  himself  upon  virtue  alone. 
He  was  so  loving  that  he  could  not  rest  in  the  words : 
"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart."  His  love  added: 
"  For  they  shall  see  God."  "And  ye  who  follow  me  in 
this  recreation  of  the  heart  shall  sit  down  upon  thrones." 
He  knew  that  man  must  do  right  whatever  betide.  A 
tide  would  come  in  and  it  would  be  a  wave  of  joy.  He 
was  more  than  Philosopher  ;  He  was  man's  friend. 

The  Mind  Must  Ascend. 
Inasmuch  as  the  golden  age  must  come  by  natural 
law  it  must  come  by  a  widening  intellect  that  shall  slowly 
drag  the  heart  up  after  it.  If  the  modern  intelligence  is 
half-way  up  the  mountain  then  modern  morality  is  one- 
fourth  the  way  from  base  to  peak.  In  the  classic  land 
when  genius  was  far  up  the .  sides  of  leafy  Parnassus 
morality  was  still  around  the  mountain's  base.  In  bar- 
barian lands  both  genius  and  virtue  are  in  sickly  vale. 
The  mind  is  the  first  to  pass  out  and  up. 

Faith  a  Passion. 

Happy  day  for  earth  when  such  a  being  as  Jesus 
Christ  came  to  stand  in  the  center  of  religious  belief  to 
transform  faith  into  a  passion.  Out  of  that  new  and  in- 
finite outlook  came  the  new  purity  of  the  human  heart; 
came  the  tenderness  that  abolished  the  Coliseum;  came 
the  heroism  that  made  martyrs;  came  the  spiritnal  power 
that  gave  us  new  literature  and  new  arts;  came  the  new 
high  and  solemn  music;  came  the  equality  of  man  that 
gave  us  liberty;  came  the  pure  worship  that  leads  to 
Heaven.     Where   Christ   has   gone  and  has  been  deeply 


DAVID  SWING.  239 

loved,  languor,  that  withering  of  the  soul,  has  been 
delayed  or  averted.  The  missionary  has  sailed  out 
upon  every  sea;  the  Elliotts  and  Marquettes  have 
traversed  the  pine  forests  and  the  prairies;  the  Henry 
Marty ns  have  prayed  in  Persia;  ever)^  where  the  heart  of 
man  has  moved  out  toward  his  fellow,  because  this  faith 
and  hope  have  beaten  like  a  glorious  midsummer  storm 
upon  the  barren  heart,  and  have  transformed  it  into  an 
Eden.  Faith  alone  touches  the  strings  of  the  soul  and 
makes  music. 

Black  Morals  Must  Grow  White. 
God  does  not  need  to  be  appeased.  If  a  soul  does 
wrong,  nothing  can  come  from  the  outside  of  that  soul 
to  satisfy  the  divine  displeasure.  All  amending  must 
come  from  within  the  soul.  What  was  black  in  morals 
must  grow  white.  Jesus  reveals  all  the  hidden  white- 
ness of  humanity.  He  erases  the  stains  of  the  ages  and 
shows  the  hidden  color  so  possible  to  mankind.  He 
stands  as  a  solution  to  the  my.stery  of  man. 

Avernus  ! 
' '  Avernus  ' '  means  birdless.  Located  in  the  desolate 
crater  of  an  extinct  volcano,  a  poisonous  air  issuing  from 
the  infernal  depths  hung  over  the  dark  water,  and  stupe- 
fied the  sense  of  the  eagle  or  the  nightingale  that  tried 
to  pass  from  shore  to  shore.  Suddenly  the  wing  became 
powerless,  and  the  eagle  with  his  pride  and  the  nightin- 
gale with  his  song  fell  into  the  river  of  death.  Let  us 
bless  the  classics  that  they  have  handed  down  to  us  such 
a  figure  of  human  life.  There  is  a  lake  of'pleasure,  of 
folly;  of  sin,  lying  near  the  homes  of  the  young.  A 
deadly  air  hangs  over  it.  The  young,  forgetful  or 
ignorant  of  its  fatal  vapors,  spread  their  wings  upon  its 
hither  shore — those  wings  made  in  Heaven,  and  good 


240  ECHOES 

enough  for  angels.  But  at  last  their  flight  is  checked, 
and  be  the  heart  once  proud  like  the  eagle's,  or  sweet 
with  song  like  the  lark's,  alike  it  falls  into  the  dark 
flood. 

Human  I^ittleness. 
But  this  sinking,  this  fainting  of  the  soul  in  presence 
of  mental  work,  is  not  the  result  of  human  greatness,  but 
human  littleness,  it  being  the  struggle  of  the  old  ' '  nat- 
ural man ' '  to  find  still  in  the  nineteenth  century  the 
sleep  and  languor  which  so  delighted  him  when  the  world 
was  young,  and  the  day  and  night  were  not  vexed  by  any 
logic  or  any  art.  It  will  require  in  us  all  great  effort  and 
will-power  to  study  man's  commerce  at  home  and  abroad; 
as  doctors  we  are  willing  to  read  the  medical  journals  of 
the  old  and  new  worlds;  as  politicians  we  are  ready  to 
mark  what  the  papers  said  yesterday,  and  what  this  or 
that  caucus  did  East  or  West;  as  ladies  of  fashion  all  are 
willing  to  study  the  latest  forms  of  raiment,  and  to  com- 
bine desire  with  the  study;  but  to  get  out  of  these  chan- 
nels, and  while  merchants  to  care  for  law,  or  while 
doctors  to  care  for  theology,  or  while  lawyers  to  give  any 
thought  to  a  missionary,  this  is  the  crucial  test  which 
few  can  survive. 

God  and  Immortality. 
As  the  army  of  Moses  marched  toward  the  pillar  of 
cloud  and  fire,  so  the  army  of  all  men  has  marched  toward 
that  ideal  of  holiness  which  we  call  God,  filling  all  space 
with  its  radiance.  Of  all  visions  that  have  cheered  and 
directed  and  inspired  man,  the  vision  of  God  and  immor- 
tality has  been  the  chief  Atheism  would  be  an  awful 
destruction  of  ideals.  To  make  man  look  downward 
instead  of  up,  to  look  backward  instead  of  into  endless 
life,  to  ask  the  heart  to  exchange  God's  temple  for  the 


DAVID   SWING. 


241 


forum,  to  ask  woman  to  look  away  from  the  Infinite 
purity  and  find  her  virtue  only  in  the  laws  of  the  State, 
this  would  be  such  a  destruction  of  ideals  as  a  soul  fash- 
ioned like  the  human  soul  could  not  bear,  we  fear,  without 
sinking  like  that  morning  star,  Lucifer,  from  the  light  of 
heaven  down  to  hell's  rayless  gloom.  The  soul  is  not 
shaped  by  the  actual,  but  by  the  ideal. 

l^ugland,  Athens  and  Rome  I^eft  Behind. 

In  this  new  breadth  of  thought  all  the  modern  nations 
join  and  not  only  is  the  old  England  left  far  behind,  but 
even  classic  Athens  and  Rome  are  dimmed  by  this 
modern  splendor.  The  new  immense  themes  of  reflec- 
tion have  made  a  new  mental  power  and  a  greater 
mental  republic.  The  state  in  its  liberty  and  infinite 
detail  of  right,  the  church  in  its  doctrines  and  morals, 
the  social  questions,  the  status  of  man,  woman,  and 
child,  the  home,  the  public  education,  the  group  of 
sciences,  the  brilliant  company  of  arts,  the  inventions, 
the  study  of  nature,  the  study  of  beauty,  the  drama,  the 
opera,  the  literature  of  history,  philosophy  and  poetry 
and  romance  are  only  the  names  of  the  tasks  in  which 
the  mind  of  our  age  is  busied.  For  breadth  and  depth 
no  river  of  thought  as  great  has  ever  flowed  through 
any  period.  By  the  law  of  intelligence  as  related  to  sin, 
the  stream  of  wrong  must  be  less  than  it  was  before  this 
great  thought  came.  Intemperance  is  moving  slowly 
away  from  the  upper  classes.  More  benevolence  comes. 
Love  displaces  cruelty.  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  are  left 
to  only  history.  Vice  is  not  killed,  but  it  is  wounded. 
Moral  beauty  and  not  infamy  is  openly  crowned.  Our 
literature  is  more  pure ;  and  a  little  more  of  honor  is 
seen  on  the  streets  and  is  met  by  the  traveler.  As  the 
sun,    always   pulling   at   our  world,    cannot   afiect   the 


242  ECHOES 

solid  fields  and  mountains,  but  can  lift  up  the  wide  sea 
because  it  is  soft  and  flexible,  and  thus  can  make  a  tide 
rise  high  and  run  like  the  shadow  of  a  cloud,  so  the 
human  intellect  rising  to  vast  bulk  and  power  can  lift 
up  the  pliant  morals  of  mankind,  and  make  a  wave  of 
goodness  run  swift  and  high.  Even  in  our  land  which 
seems  so  sinful,  the  mass  of  thought  is  pulling  up  a  tide 
of  love.  The  golden  age  will  dawn  when  the  affections 
of  society  shall  rise  in  a  higher  tide  to  the  pulling  of  the 
intellect. 

Six  Thousand  Graves- 
How  vast  is  this  cemetery  of  our  soldiers  !  There  are 
six  burying  grounds  within  sight  of  the  National  Capi- 
tol. Any  Congressman  who  is  now  trying  to  sell  his 
Nation  for  gain  might  by  a  short  walk  or  ride  come  to 
some  holy  spot  where  the  silence  and  pathos  of  the  scene 
would  tell  him  to  think  more  deeply  and  act  more  wisely. 
What  a  voice  would  come  from  the  military  asylum,  with 
its  6,000  graves  !  What  a  voice  from  Arlington,  with  its 
16,000  dead  !  What  a  voice  from  that  one  spot  where 
lie  the  bones  of  2,000  men  whose  names  were  not  known  ! 
The  bursting  shell,  or  lingering  disease,  or  emaciation 
in  prison,  or  seperation  from  companions  had  made  the 
name  and  home  of  the  dead  one  dissapear,  never  to  come 
back.  Here  around  the  Capitol  of  their  conntry  lie 
25,000,  who  for  their  country's  welfare,  offered  up  all 
the  sweets  of  this  life. 

A  Glorious  Rationalism. 
The  evil  of  a  destructive  skepticism  must  lie  chiefly  in 
that  arrest  of  spiritual  power  which  it  must  bring. 
There  is  a  rationalism  which,  while  it  is  busy  destroying 
some  ideas,  is  pouring  tenfold  love  upon  other  thoughts. 
It  moves  away  from  a  desert  that  it  may  build  up  a  home 


DAVID  SWING.  243 

in  a  paradise.  This  is  a  glorious  rationalism.  But  there 
is  an  ultra  logic  which,  instead  of  moving  away  from  the 
desert,  declares  all  other  places  to  be  also  a  sandy  waste, 
and  it  sits  down  to  perpetual  stoicism  or  perpetual  sor- 
row. Such  a  skepticism  is  a  withdrawal  of  the  supplies 
of  life  For  many  of  the  springs  of  life  cannot  be  dis- 
covered and  established  by  logic.  The  Nile  may  be 
followed  and  its  sources  found,  but  there  are  streams  in 
the  soul  to  whose  fountain-heads  our  science  can  n^t 
come.  It  must  be  assumed  that  they  come  from  the 
alpha  of  life,  a  personal  God.  The  critical  inquiry  that 
denies  this,  has  repealed  in  this  overthrow  of  faith  a 
law  that  has  been  the  intense  life  of  man. 


Professor  Swing's  I/ast  "Words :    A  Passage  From  the 
Ilnfinislied    Sermon, 

In  our  largest  mercantile  house  there  are  clerks  who 
receive  $20,000  a  year.  In  one  of  our  music  houses  we 
can  find  the  same  kind  of  fact.  Great  salaries  are  follow- 
ing labor's  flag,  but  it  is  vain  to  say  that  those  salaries 
come  from  demand  and  supply,  for  we  know  that  these 
fortunate  clerks  could  be  procured  at  a  much  lower  rate. 
Wages  are  being  modified  by  the  sentiment  of  human 
brotherhood.  It  must  not  be  raised  as  an  objection  that 
this  sentiment  is  not  universal.  Perhaps  the  man  who 
raises  the  objection  has  not  yet  become  perfectly  redeemed 
himself.  We  should  all  be  conscious  of  the  slowness  with 
which  perfection  spreads  over  the  mortal  heart.  When 
the  town  of  Pullman  was  projected,  two  or  more  mem- 
bers of  its  small  but  rich  syndicate  opposed  the  construc- 
tion of  such  a  beautiful  village.  They  said,  "beauty  of 
streets,  of  houses,  library,  theater,  market-place,  church, 


244  ECHOES 

lakes,  and  fountains,  will  yield  no  interest  on  the  invest- 
ment. Plain,  cheap  huts  will  do  as  well."  But  the 
higher  ideal  carried,  and  $3,000,000  were  thus  flung 
away.  Some  of  the  founders  remembered  the  sweat- 
shops of  the  world;  and  some  remembered  also  the  black 
slaves  who  had  received  from  capital  neither  a  home  nor 
wages.  There  may  be  defects  in  the  Pullman  idea,  but 
viewed  from  a  hundred  gambling  dens  and  5, 000 saloons, 
^  looks  well.  Seen  from  our  City  Hall  it  looks  like  a 
group  of  palm  trees  waving  over  a  spring  in  the  desert. 
While  traveling  through  hell  Dante  was  cheered  when, 
looking  through  pitchy  clouds,  he  saw  a  star. 

We  are  not  to  assume  that  the  town  of  Pullman  has 
reached  its  greatest  excellence.  It  is  injured  by  the 
unrest  of  the  Nation.  Perhaps  many  of  our  greatest 
employers  will,  like  Mr.  Brassy,  of  England,  decline  to 
accept  of  us  profits  beyond  5  per  cent.  We  must  all  hope 
much  from  the  gradual  progress  of  brotherly  love.  *  *  * 

Here  the  professor's  last  manuscript  ended. 


v^5^^^^^ 


DAVID  SWING.  245 


TRIBUTE  TO  JAMES  A.  GARFIEI.D. 


BY    DAVID   SWING. 


Now  all  ye  flowers  make  room  ; 
Hither  we  come  in  gloom 
To  make  a  mighty  tomb, 

Sighing  and  weeping. 
Grand  was  the  life  he  led ; 
Wise  was  each  word  he  said  ; 
But  with  the  noble  dead 

We  leave  him  sleeping. 

Soft  may  his  body  rest 
As  on  his  mother's  breast, 
Whose  love  stands  all  confessed 

Mid  blinding  tears ; 
But  may  his  soul  so  white 
Rise  in  triumphant  flight 
And  in  God's  land  of  light 

Spend  endless  years. 


246  ECHOES 


BRIEF   PASSAGES   FROM   THE    PRAYERS  OF 
PROFESSOR  DAVID  SWING. 


We  know  we  pronounce  Thy  name  with  unworthy- 
lips,  but  we  know  we  come  into  the  presence  of  one  full 
of  forgiveness  ;  infinite  in  love.  May  we  all  feel  forgiven 
and  accepted.  Fill  all  Thy  Sanctuary  in  this  hour. 
Bless  this  land  in  all  its  interests.  Bless  this  Thy  holy 
day. 


O,  Thou,  who  revealest  Thyself  as  "Our  Father  in 
Heaven,"  indeed,  but  also  everywhere.  Thou  fiUest  all 
space  with  Thy  presence,  there  is  no  place  where  Thou 
art  not  present  in  wisdom,  as  well  as  in  power  ;  be  Thou 
very  near  to  accept  of  our  worship,  to  bless  and  to  save. 


We  come  into  Thy  presence  as  sincere  worshipers. 
May  every  passing  day,  every  passing  scene,  reveal  to  us 
more  and  more  Thy  presence.  Make  more  visible  Thy 
presence  in  the  world,  and  more  visible  Thy  relations  to 
us.  Make  each  Sunday  that  comes  more  full  of  rest,  full 
of  affection,  full  of  wisdom. 


Bless  all  Thy  courts  this  day  ;  go  with  the  worshipers. 
We  pray  for  a  special  blessing  on  this  congregation. 
Bless  our  friends  who  are  disturbed  with  great  sorrow — 


DAVID   SWING.  247 

parted  from  loved  ones  ;  may  they  think  of  the  world  be- 
yond this — where  there  will  be  a  perfect  union  of  friends. 
Dispel  all  our  doubts,  and  accept  of  us  in  our  Saviour's 
name. 


May  this  life  not  seem  all  of  life.  May  we  look  for- 
ward to  a  better  land  ;  to  the  presence  of  the  King  of 
Kings  ;  the  fatherland,  whose  ways  are  ways  of  pleasant- 
ness and.  all  her  paths  peace  ;  look  forward  to  coming  to 
the  greatest  of  parents — most  loving — most  kind — most 
wise.  May  we  all  accept  His  life,  marking  His  actions, 
noting  His  faith,  His  trust,  and.  so  live,  that  He  may  be- 
come to  each  of  us  a  perfect  Saviour,  saving  us  and 
bringing  us  at  last  to  His  final  home.  Hear  us  and 
graciously  accept  of  us,  for  Christ's  sake. 


We,  who  have  so  often  been  worshipers,  again  as- 
semble. New  obligations  have  sprung  up.  Thou  hast 
been  near  us  in  power.  Thou  hast  led  us  along  to  other 
hours  and  days,  and  hast  permitted,  us  again  to  meet 
each  other  in  the  house  of  prayer.  The  goodness  that 
gave  us  being,  the  power  that  has  been  near  us  and  kept 
with  such  mindful  care,  is  with  us  still.  And  we  meet 
again  to  bless  Thee.  Thou  art  everything  to  each  of  us. 
Thou  art  life  and  Thou  art  the  quality  of  life,  the  con- 
tinuance of  life,  and  Thou  art  the  only  hope  we  have  of 
life  beyond  this.  We  come  into  this  world  at  Thy 
bidding  ;  so,  at  Thy  bidding  we  die,  and  at  Thy  bidding 
shall  live  again.  So,  we  are  each  of  us  the  ' '  Alpha ' ' 
and  ' '  Omega, ' '  the  beginning,  the  ending. 


248  ECHOES 

May  we  realize,  as  often  as  we  come  into  Thy  sanc- 
tuary, though  we  bring  many  sins,  sins  committed 
against  each  other,  (but  thus  we  must  come)  we  come 
into  the  presence  of  one  who  forgives.  We  come  with 
our  prayers  and  our  penitence  and  ask  for  forgiveness. 
Come  to  us  and  bless  us  with  the  blessing  each  heart 
needs.  Come  and  bestow  some  gift  that  will  keep  life 
from  being  a  great  loss  and  failure,  and  that  will  make 
all  years  full  of  usefulness  and  happiness.  Come  with 
special  blessing.  Give  each  a  faith  to  see  Thee,  and  to 
know  Thou  art  near.  Come  to  each  with  a  change  of 
heart,  so  we  may  all  be  made  new  creatures  in  Christ 
Jesus.  Then  come  to  each  of  us,  children  of  mortality, 
with  a  hope  of  another  life. 

We  bless  Thee  specially  for  a  day  that  brings  our 
thoughts  to  another  life  ;  a  day  that  is  sacred  to  a  life  to 
come  ;  sacred  to  the  dead  ;  sacred  to  all  that  is  beyond 
this  life.  May  Thy  presence  be  so  with  us,  that  we  shall 
believe  without  a  donbt — be  able  almost  to  see  a  world 
brighter  than  this ;  a  world  divested  of  all  sin  ;  of  all 
disappointments  ;  of  all  that  makes  it  undesirable.  We 
know  that  all  of  us  come  to  this  life  through  Thee  ;  there- 
fore all  go  to  Thee,  who  art  the  resurrection  and  the  life  ; 
and  believing  in  Thee,  we  accept  Thy  word,  and  are  glad 
to  bear  the  toil  and  suffering  for  Thy  sake,  doing  good, 
as  Christ  did,  and  at  last  go  down  to  the  grave  to  ever- 
lasting life  beyond.  Fill  all  our  hearts  with  simple  faith 
and  simple  morals  ;  and  may  the  hope  of  a  life  to  come 
bring  great  happiness  to  all. 

Thou,  everlasting  to  everlasting,  unchanging,  loving 
Father,  always  powerful,  always  wise,  always  near,  iieli: 


DAVID  SWING. 


249 


US  to  come  into  Thy  presence  gladly.  May  all  the  days 
of  the  past  week  make  this  seem  more  to  us  the  house  of 
God.  May  the  tumult  of  the  world,  its  noise,  its  sadness, 
its  business,  its  necessities,  lead  us  all  to  enjoy  the  peace 
that  passeth  all  understanding — the  peace  of  worship — 
the  peace  that  comes  to  each  heart  on  Thy  holy  day. 
Although  all  days  are  sacred — all  days  come  from  Thy 
Divine  hand — and  are  full  of  blessedness  and  happiness, 
yet  help  us  all  to  realize  that  the  day  of  worship  is 
greater  than  all  other  days.  This  day,  we  pronounce 
Thy  holy  name  ;  sing  to  Thee  ;  read  in  Thy  presence  to 
each  other  the  Divine  words  of  truth. 


INDEX. 


Action              ...... 

85 

Achilles  Trembled  Before  Jove, 

.     194 

Avernus,           ...... 

239 

Adonirain  Judson,              ..... 

•      99 

Angelo  and  Raphael,             .... 

162 

August  Comte,       ...... 

156-189 

A  Beautiful  Heaven  and  a  Beautiful  America, 

103 

A  Beautiful  that  Does  Not  Fade, 

.     216 

A  Day  in  June,            .            -            .            .            . 

197 

A  Fine  Ear  for  Heart-Pulses,       .            .            .            . 

.      84 

A  Golden  Age,            ..... 

233 

A  Glorious  Rationalism,                .... 

.     242 

A  Poor  Use  of  a  Great  Mind, 

60 

A  Sad  Divorce,        ....             .             . 

•      77 

A  State  Church  Not  Possible, 

56 

A  Thousand  Blessed  Years,           .... 

.     192 

A  Touch  of  Satire,      ..... 

55 

A  Universe  Under  Law,     ..... 

.     232 

A  Vastness  of  Love,    ..... 

173 

All  Days  Cannot  be  Fair,               .... 

.       72 

An  Absolute  Life  Impossible, 

200 

An  Age  of  Worship,           ..... 

•       19 

An  Editor  May  be  a  Statesman, 

204 

An  Endless  Problem,         ,            . 

.     150 

An  Ideal  Christmas,    ..... 

163 

An  Infinite  and  Eternal  God,       .... 

.     184 

Another  and  a  Greater  "Gettysburg," 

50 

Be  a  Little  More  Patient,               .... 

.     217 

Beauty  Following  Thought, 

139 

Beauty  in  Darkest  Africa,              .... 

.     174 

Benevolence  Should  Not  Be  Delayed, 

124 

252 


INDEX, 


"Beyond  the  Wall  of  Our  Own  Life  We  See  Little," 

Black  Morals  Must  Grow  White, 

"Blue  "  and  "Gray,"        .... 

Brief  Passages  from  Prayers  of  Professor  Swing, 

Burns  and  Lickens,  .... 

But  Little  New  Truth, 

Byron  and  Franklin,  ... 

Calvin  Did  Help  the  Millennium,     . 

Caste  in  India,         .... 

Caste  is  Weak,  .... 

Changes  in  the  Path  of  Progress, 

Christ  a  Wide,  Deep,  Moral  World, 

Christ  and  Woman,  ... 

Christ  as  a  Fact,  .... 

Christ  in  Our  Highest  Emotions, 

Christ  in  Human  Life, 

Christ  Shaping  the  Literature  of  Doubt, 

Christ  Spoke  for  a  Whole  World,     . 

Christ  the  Center  and  Circumference,     . 

Christ  the  Revelation  of  a  New  God, 

Christ  the  True  "Liberalist,"      .  .    ' 

Christian  Means  Christ, 

Christian  Philosophy  Begins  with  God, 

Christianity  Flexible  in  Mode, 

Christmas  a  High  Wave  of  Good  Will  to  Men, 

Christmas  a  Simple  Language, 

Christmas  and  the  Children,  .  , 

Christmas  and  the  Feasting  of  the  Thousands, 

Christmas  a  Supplement  to  the  Heart,    . 

Civilization  the  Mitigation  of  a  Hard  Lot, 

Clergymen  Must  be  Leaders, 

Climbing  Mon  Blanc, 

Coleridge  in  Chamouni,     . 

Conditions  of  Success, 

Confucius,    . 

Creeds  Harmful  to  Worship, 

Crumbling  Thrones, 

Cultivate  Your  Reason, 

Danger  Ahead,        .  , 

Days  When  God  Was  All,     . 


INDEX. 


^53 


Decoration  Day,      .... 
Decoratson  Day  a  Perpetual  Institution, 
De  Toquemada,       .... 
Dens  Like  Palaces, 
Do  Not  Ask  Too  Much,      . 
Doctrines  Sink,  Character  Rises, 
Dr.  R.  W.  Patterson, 
Each  Age  Bows  to  Philosophy, 
Egotism,      .  .  .  ,  . 

Emilio  Castelar,  .  .  .  . 

England,  Athens  and  Rome  Left  Behind, 
Events  Come  Slowly, 
Every  Heart  Has  Thoughts, 
Faith  a  Passion,  .  .  .  , 

Faith,  Hope  and  Will, 

Fallible  Workmen,     .  .  .  . 

■  Fields  Drenched  in  Blood, 
Flowers  in  the  Name  of  a  New  Greatness, 
From  Darkness  to  Light,  . 
Full  Permission  to  be  Educated, 
Give  Generously !     Give  Now  !     . 
God  and  Immortality, 
God  and  the  People, 

God  Cares  Nothing  Minutiae  of  Worship, 
God  Dismissed  from  Human  Thought,  . 
God  Great  by  What  He  Gives, 
God  is  Love, 
God  in  the  Holy  Place, 
"  God  the  Only  Potentate," 
God's  Mercy  Slow, 
Goldwin  Smith, 
Good  Leaders, 
Good  Out  of  Nazareth, 
Goodness  and  Perfection, 
Greatness  of  Spirit, 
Guns  for  One,  Means  Guns  for  All, 
HarmoRy  Born  of  Love, 
Hebrew  and  Christian  Pictures  of  God, 
Heroism  the  Beauty  of  the  Soul, 
Highest  Education  Tends  to  Simplicity, 


^54 


INDEX. 


History  Full  of  Ruins, 

How  Good  Men  May  Disgrace  Their  Souls, 

'•  How  I  Love  Thy  Law," 

How  Men  Have  Loved  War, 

How  the  Greeks  Loved  Greece, 

How  to  Love  Christ, 

How  Theologians  Travel, 

Holding  Fast  to  Truth, 

Human  Littleness, 

Humanity  Waiting  for  Noble  Deeds, 

Ideals  in  Art, 

Idleness  Fatal  to  a  State, 

If  Christ  Were  Here  Now, 

If  We  Knew  God,        .... 

Ignorance  of  the  World, 

Industry  and  Love,      .... 

Ingredients  of  a  High  Manhood, 

Inspiration  Does  Not  Deal  in  Common  Things 

Ireevalent  Terms     .... 

Is  not  all  Thinking  Perilous, 

Jasper  in  the  Rock  of  Poverty,    . 

Jesus  Willing  to  Die, 

Jesus  Christ  Greater  than  all  Sects, 

Jesus  Christ  Touching  the  Inmost  Spirit,     . 

Jeremiah's  Tears, 

Job,  and  Dante,  and  Milton, 

Kindness  Cannot  Cease,    . 

Kingdom  of  Law  and  Love, 

Labor  Hostile  to  Labor, 

Labor  Must  be  Law  Abiding, 

"Labor  Sowing  Tares."     Last  sermon  preached  by 

Swing  at  Central  Music  Hall,  March  20,  1894, 
"Land-Owner"  and  "Brain-Owner," 
Law  Everywhere,  .... 

Lessing,  ...... 

"Let  Me  Die  in  Peace,"    .... 

Let  Our  Politics  be  Intelligible, 
Let  Us  be  Kind  to  Young  Ideas, 
Let  Us  be  Patient,        ..... 

Let  Us  Walk  Humbly,       .... 


Professor 


INDEX. 


255 


Liberty,  ...... 

"Liberalism  as  Old  as  Thought," 

Literature  is  too  Light,  .... 

Little  Souls  Cannot  Be  Kept  from  the  Bosom  of  God, 
Lonely  Hours,  ..... 

Long  Rooted  Ills  Vanish  Slowly,  .  , 

Lord  Bacon,  ..... 

Love  for  Half  Visions, 

Luther  a  Fragment, 

Luther  a  Result  of  the  Classic  Universities, 

Man  Born  to  Greatness  as  Well  as  Trouble, 

Man  is  God's  Guest, 

Man  Made  by  Little  Things, 

Man  Made  Great  by  Sentiments, 

Man's  Thoughts  Invisible,     . 

Many  Thoughts  Die, 

Martyrdom  :  An  Error  and  a  Crime, 

Mere  Denial  a  Poor  Foundation  for  a  Church, 

Millennium,      ..... 

Mind  Growing  Under  Culture, 

Mistakes  of  Agnostics, 

Modnrn  Revivalists  and  Hebrew  Prophets, 

Morals  Born  of  Belief  in  God, 

More  "  Lives  of  Saints  "  than  Saints, 

Mozart's  Desire, 

Mr.  Childs  an  Example     . 

Music  the  Child  of  Cnristianity, 

Music  the  Sister  of  Religion, 

Nationalism, 

Nature  Speaking  to  Man, 

Neglected  Children, 

Newness, 

New  Truths  Rise  Slowly, 

New  School  Presbyterianism, 

No  More  Military  Poems, 

No  Need  to  Lay  in  Fire-arms, 

No  Time  for  Despots, 

Noah's  Dove  with  a  Leaf, 

Not  Everything  Beautiful,     . 

Nothing  Available  on  Earth  but  Man, 


256 


INDEX. 


Nothing  is  Independent, 

O,  Boasting  Century, 

Obedience  to  Law, 

"Oh,  How  I  Ivove  Thy  Law, "       . 

Old  and  Immortal,      .... 

Old  World  Blooms, 

On  Both  Banks  of  the  Ohio, 

On  the  Quick  March, 

Oriental  Figures,         .... 

Our  Moral  World  has  no  Railway  Speed, 

Our  Nation  Must  Be  Just, 

Our  Rice  is  in  its  Infancy, 

Our  Sorrows  Only  Temporary, 

Pagan  Gods  Only  Dreams, 

Party  Names  Must  Die, 

Paul,  Xavier  and  Judson, 

Pigeons  and  Doves, 

Praying  for  God  and  Rejecting  Christ, 

Presbyterian  and  Episcopal  Worshipers  Much  Alike , 

Professor  Swing's  Last  Words, 

' '  Protestant ' '  and  ' '  Catholic, " 

Politics,  .... 

Poor  Thoughts  Fade, 

Power  of  Moral  Influence, 

Poetry  and  Wealth, 

Reason  and  Imagination, 

Relations  Involve  Duty, 

Religion  a  Science  of  Generalities, 

Religion  Faithful  to  the  Ages, 

Religion  Fighting  Vice  Only, 

Religion  has  Become  Beautiful, 

Religion  Kind  to  all  Ages 

Religion  Must  Work  by  Love, 

Religion  Should  Stand  Great, 

Religion  will  No  More  Toil  Alone, 

"Righteous  "—"  Converted," 

Rivalry  Instead  of  Worship, 

Roses  of  the  Heart,  . 

Salvation  and  Forms, 

Saviour, 


INDEX. 


257 


Seneca  and  George  Fox, 
Science  Full  of  Cruelty, 
Self  Denial,       ..... 

Six  Thousand  Graves, 
So  Long  !  And  Yet  So  Ignorant, 
Something  that  Was  Not  a  Mistake, 
Son  of  God,  .... 

Space  Seems  Impossible, 
Spirituous  Drink  the  Death  of  Thought, 
Success  to  the  Civic  Federation, 
Tears,  .  .  .  ... 

Ten  Thoughts,  .... 

Tennyson's  "In  Memoriam," 

Thank  God  for  Our  Altars,  . 

The  Age  Treats  Us  All  Alike, 

The  Angels  Will  and  Judgment, 

The  Arts,     ..... 

The  Attic  Philosopher, 

The  Barren  Wars  of  History, 

The  Battle  Hymns  of  the  Republic, 

The  Beauty  of  Homely  Heroes,    . 

The  Bible  All  Glorious, 

The  Bible  Definite  and  Indefinite, 

The  Bible  an  Open  Book, 

The  Bible  in  the  Schools, 

The  Black  Passion,     .... 

The  Blending  Christ, 

The  Broad  Churchman, 

The  Church  the  Moral  Hope  of  the  Land, 

The  Composure  of  Theology  and  the  Courage 

The  Dawn  of  Brotherhood, 

The  Death  of  Caste     .... 

The  Disciples  Amazed, 

The  Divine  Summer  Time  of  the  People, 

The  Ever  Rolling  Web  of  Life,    . 

The  Example  of  Jonah, 

The  Fourth  and  Fifth  Centuries, 

The  Future  Has  No  Potency 

The  Gate  Beautiful  ... 

The  God  Idea  .... 


of  Scepticism, 


258 


INDEX. 


The  Golden  Rod    . 

The  Great  Discoveries  of  Our  Era 

The  Greatness  of  the  World 

The  Greek  Race 

The  Heart  of  the  Pulpit 

The  Heroes  of  the  Bible 

The  Highest  Utterance  of  Atheism 

The  Hindoo  Fakirs  Are  All  Thelogians 

The  Human  Feet  Must  Tramp    . 

The  Industrious  Millions,     . 

The  Imperishable  Ideas  of  Christ, 

The  Impressionist  School  of  Art, 

The  Insanity  of  Fanatics, 

The  Justice  of  Jesus  Christ, 

The  Low  in  the  Spirit,      .... 

The  Large  Part  of  Life  Should  Come  First, 

The  Making  of  Christian  Character, 

The  Mind  of  God,       .... 

The  Mind  Must  Ascend, 

The  Modern  Girl's  Indebtedness,    . 

The  Moral  Quality  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion, 

The  Moral  Spendthrift, 

The  Music  is  More  than  the  Notes, 

The  Name  "  United  States  "  a  New  Name, 

The  Nation  Has  No  Soul, 

The  Natural  World, 

The  New  Human  Philosophy, 

The  New  Testament  Has  Been  Compelled  to  Keep 

The  Organization  of  Unions, 

The  Old  Baleful  Theology, 

The  Old  Gods  Are  Dumb, 

The  Old  Slave  on  Goat  Island, 

The  Outlook  Draped  With  Clouds, 

The  Pilgrims  to  Washington, 

The  Potter's  Clay, 

The  Power  of  Words, 

The  Poverty  of  the  Prophets, 

The  Providence  of  Law, 

The  Pulpit  Knows  but  Little, 

The  Pulpit  Must  March  with  the  Age, 


.  228 

164 

.  147 

114 

.   38 

87 

•  179 

144 

•   57 

86 

.  209 

122 

•   51 

187 

.  209 

105 

•   47 

167 

.  238 

181 

.  112 

20 

•   24 

95 

.  205 

227 

.    46 

Bad  Companyi48 

.   41 

168 

.   121 

173 

•   144 

223 

.   208 

159 

.   141 

230 

•   173 

27 

INDEX, 


259 


The  Pulpit  Should  Adorn  the  Battlefield, 

The  Ratchet  on  the  Wheel  of  Progress,     ,    ' 

The  Reconciliation  of  Christianity  and  Common  Sense 

The  Reformation  Occupied  Three  Hundred  Years, 

The  Rich,  the  Poor  and  the  Children, 

The  Right  to  Liberty, 

The  Rights  of  Dumb  Brutes, 

The  Robe  of  Thought, 

The  Scotch  Heather, 

The  Sensitive  Mind, 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  Was  Needed, 

The  Shellfish  Element  in  Man, 

The  Sirens  Round  the  Boat  of  Ulysses, 

The  Sound  of  Many  Waters, 

The  Stream  of  Public  Morals,     . 

The  Street  Called  "By-and-by,"      . 

The  Study  of  Man  is  the  Study  of  Mind, 

The  Task  of  Author  and  Orator, 

The  Times  "  Out  of  Joint," 

The  Torn  Page, 

The  True  Source  of  a  New  Era, 

The  Usefulness  of  To-day, 

The  Unity  of  Thought  and  Morals, 

The  Value  of  Worship, 

The  Vastness  of  the  Universe,     . 

The  Wills  of  the  Rich, 

The  Word  "God," 

The  Worship  of  God  an  Unfading  Flower, 

The  Worship  of  Humanity, 

The  Years  an  Etruscan  Vase, 

Thomas  Jefferson, 

Those  Who  Seek  Justice  Should  be  Just, 

Thought  Brings  Change, 

Times  Have  Changed  Since  the  Year  120S, 

Toiling  is  Vain,      .... 

To-morrow  Will  Be  as  To-day, 

Toussant  Louverture, 

Tribute  to  James  A.  Garfield, 

True  Greatness  Comes  Slowly, 

True  Thoughs  of  God, 


132 
76 
29 

140 


26o 


INDEX. 


Unitarians  Unhappy  Over  Their  Name, 

"  Universalism  Giving  Place  to  Christian," 

Usefullness  is  Born  of  Love, 

Vague,  but  Most  Valuable, 

Vines  and  Flowers, 

Waiting  for  a  Fact,     .... 

Wanted  ! — A  Scrong  Government, 

Washington,         .... 

Watching  and  Fighting, 

Wendell  Phillips,       .... 

We  All  Need  Special  Care, 

We  Cannot  Escape  the  Great  Problem, 

We  Cannot  Wait  for  Names, 

We  Learn  by  Sight, 

We  Must  be  Wholly  Free, 

What  a  Vision  for  Isaiah  and  John,     . 

What  Does  this  Babbler  Say  ?      . 

What  is  "  Breath,"     . 

What  Is  a  Citizen  ?  .  .  , 

What  Is  a  Church  ?     . 

What  Is  a  Statesman  ?      .  . 

What  Modern  Scientists  Have  Done, 

What  Overthrevv'  Slavery, 

What  Touches  One  Touches  All,     . 

What  Will  Atheism  Bring? 

When  Citizens  Are  Followers  of  Christ, 

When  the  Higher  Politics  Shall  Come, 

Where  Sin  Is,  God  Is  Not, 

Whittier  Wept  Like  Jeremiah,     I 

Why  Dumas  Failed, 

Why  Not  Accept  a  Deity  ? 

Why  We  Love  the  Violets, 

Wisdom  Not  Fickle, 

Wolf!  Wolf!  .  .       ■     ,       ' 

Woman  Fifty  Years  Ago, 

Woman  in  Japan, 

Words  Are  Embalmed  Ideas* 

Worship  Enchains  Man  to  His  Maker, 

Worship  is  for  the  Worshiper,     . 

Xavier,  Duff,  Judson, 

You  Cannot  Drive  a  Yoke  of  Oxen  '  a  Mile  a  Minute, 

Young  People  of  the  Past  Injured, 


215 

70 

147 
86 

143 
211 

86 
158-180 

99 

80 
182 

58 


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